Dauntless - Memoirs of a Middleman
by Knightmare Frame Razgriz
Summary: A Sidestory to Allora Gale's "Dauntless". Where do the Japanese keep getting all of those guns? Jin Nakata can give you the answer, and much more... for the right price. Follow Nakata from the invasion of Japan straight to his meeting with the Wolf of Britannia, and everything in between and beyond. Rated T for intense violence and mild language.
1. Chapter 1

**Premise:** A Side Story of Allora Gale's _Dauntless_. Where do all of those guns in Area 11 come from? Jin Nakata is one of the few who can answer this question. Follow Jin's story, from his start with Naoto and Ohgi's resistance group, to his time in the Blood of the Samurai, straight up to his meeting with the infamous Wolf of Britannia and beyond.

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_**Dauntless - Memoirs of a Middleman**_

**Chapter 1 – **_**Step Up to the Firing Line**_

Grey-suited, mask-clad infantrymen marched in rank and file down the streets of downtown Tokyo, their straggling comrades lining the avenues and raising thunderous cheers. Tanks followed shortly after, their crews resting atop the turrets and waving victoriously, the commanders perched in cupolas and waving berets with wide grins.

At the tail end of the pack, the cheers increased in volume to greet the elite pilots of Britannia's ultimate weapon – the Knightmare Frame. Men and women in form-fitting blue piloting suits stood on the seats of their open cockpits, striking poses and generally flaunting their success.

In darkened corners and alleyways, battered and bruised civilians peered out fearfully at their conquerors, having seen these terrible weapons in action against their own now-defunct military forces, as well as their homes, families, and friends.

This was Area 11 – the once-great nation of Japan, reduced to a mere number under the oppression of the Holy Britannian Empire.

Days after the end of the short-lived war, the city of Tokyo remained in ruins, the glorious, shining skyscrapers of downtown reduced to miserable heaps of twisted steel and crumbled concrete. Japanese civilians of the city desperately combed the ruins, attempting in vain to recover their possessions lost in weeks of bombardment by Britannian bombers and Knightmares.

The Humanoid Autonomous Armored Knight – the Knightmare Frame, Britannia's ultimate weapon to win all wars. These four-meter-high, armed and armored mechs could outrun a Humvee, outgun a tank, and decimate a company of infantry with a single unit – at least, that was the pitch that the Britannian Army shoved down the throats of its recruits in Basic Training. The introduction of the very first mass-production model, the RPI-11 Glasgow, had allowed Emperor Charles zi Britannia's armies to sweep across the world, subjugating country after country after independent country.

In the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle Eastern Federation was quickly crumbling under Chief General Cornelia li Britannia's near-fanatical drive across the sands.

North Africa – Prime Minister Schneizel el Britannia's XII Army Corps cut ruthlessly across the continent, from the Suez Canal to Casablanca, and everything in between.

And the most outstanding success – Japan, the very first premier of Britannia's ultimate weapon.

Japan was made valuable nearly a century ago with the discovery of a new mineral, termed Sakuradite by local geologists and chemists. This new discovery was made exponentially more important upon the discovery that Sakuradite bore several unique chemical properties, and could be used to generate electrical energy.

Thus, Sakuradite was used by developed nations throughout the 20th century ATB (Ascension Throne Britannia) as a clean alternative to fossil fuels, and Japan became a major independent center of power, controlling over seventy percent of the world's known supply of the substance. Unfortunately, this also meant that every political power in the world sought to gain the country in order to obtain unlimited Sakuradite access.

International tensions had reached their peak at the start of the 21st century, when Japan cooperated with the Chinese Federation (a unified body of mainland Asia) and the European Union (the unified political body of Europe, encompassing everything west of the Urals, as well as all of Russia) to establish a passive military blockade around homeland Britannia's central trading ports. Unfortunately, this blockade was unsuccessful, and soon after culminated in the Britannian Empire retaliating by invading Japan with their new weapon.

Now, it had all come full circle. Britannia controlled the Japanese home islands, and as such had unlimited rights to the nation's Sakuradite. However, they couldn't simply stop the supply of Sakuradite to the other two major powers, lest they face a world war against the combined might of the entire Eurasian continent.

Regardless of these international dealings, the Japanese people were in a very bad spot. Numbers (referring to the peoples of conquered Areas under Britannian governance) had next to no rights in Britannian society – i.e. they were less than dirt and essentially equivalent to slaves. Numbers couldn't get better jobs in Britannian settlements than groundskeepers, janitors, servants, or generic manual laborers.

This all raced through the mind of twenty-year-old Jin Nakata as he stood atop a particularly large chunk of rubble overlooking the glorified quarry that used to be Yokosuka Harbor. Below him, at the single remaining pier, a Britannian Navy amphibious assault ship offloaded a battalion of Glasgows. The entire area was crawling with sentries, but none seemed to take any heed of Jin's presence.

In the background, the remains of Downtown Tokyo smoldered, and wings of helicopters continually swept over the ruins, occasionally firing autocannons and missiles at unseen 'insurgents'.

"And so this is what remains of the great nation of Japan…" Jin muttered to himself, flicking his Zippo open and lighting the cigarette between his lips. Taking a deep drag and blowing a ring of smoke, he contemplated the Japanese government's earlier response.

Genbu Kururugi had been a great man; a bit overzealous, when looking at the current state of the nation, but he had still been a solid leader. At the start, the people of Japan had rallied under the Rising Sun at his call to arms, and within hours, the ranks of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force had swollen under the introduction of three new infantry divisions.

The Ministry of Defense Intelligence Bureau had painted Britannian numbers at a meager two infantry divisions, backed by a single regiment of armor, a wing of bomber aircraft, and three fighter squadrons. By all numerical indications, it should've been an unprecedented slaughter in favor of the Japanese.

The first wave of bombers had caught shore defenses off-guard, but the damage was mostly aesthetic; retaliation was almost immediate, and the Air Self-Defense Force had put up a fighter screen swiftly, downing the Britannian planes in scores.

The Britannian Navy had come next, cruisers and destroyers turning their guns to the shore and shelling the shit out of everything within ten miles of the waterline. Again, retaliation by the GSDF and the ASDF came instantly, with inland-based artillery emplacements sinking the nearest attackers, fighters peppering the vessels with bombs and cannon fire, and Maritime Self-Defense Force ships emerging from Tokyo Bay to spark the first true ship-to-ship naval battle since the First Pacific War.

Next, the Army came in. Hundreds of transport planes crested the horizon, the sun at their backs allowing them within five miles before detection. Triple-A defenses had responded in kind, cutting swathes across the sky and sending up hundreds, if not thousands of missiles. But the Britannians had just kept coming.

Before long, the sun had been blocked out by the sheer number of aircraft and the volume of flak, and the Britannians crossed the shoreline. All at once, thousands of tiny black dots began emerging the from the transports in neat lines, parachutes opening at a thousand feet, as Britannian troops set foot on Japanese soil for the first time in sixty-four years. Tanks followed, attached to a half-dozen parachutes apiece, and the metal monstrosities had clunked to the ground and started firing on SDF defenses; but the tanks were manageable, the M1A2 Abrams of the Britannian Army coming gun-to-gun with the fairly superior Type 10 MBTs, as well as scores of equally-matched Type 90s.

The Japanese had seemed to be matching Britannian blow-for-blow, and in Europe and China, spectators cheered for the island nation to beat down the oppressive imperials.

That was when the Knightmares came.

Before any even knew what had happened, the transports were replaced with strange VTOL craft, each carrying a single unknown tan block. The new aircraft had dove down to a mere two hundred feet over areas that had been cleared of anti-aircraft defenses, and the containers attached to them had opened.

It was like something out of a science-fiction movie; four-meter-high robots rappelled from their carriers with unbelievable grace, and raised massive assault rifles and cannons to bear against the startled Japanese defenders. Bladed metal anchors attached to steel cables lanced out at gun emplacements and tanks, slicing through metal and reinforced concrete like butter, their targets disabled easily. A single camera set in the middle of each robot's head glinted, a green wave pulsing out from the center of it, scanning the unit's surroundings before a four-piece helmet-like cover clamped over the camera, and the mechs resumed their quest for carnage.

At this point, the balance had shifted heavily in Britannia's favor. One robot was taken out by a hail of rockets, and three more replaced it and fired in retaliation. The mechs danced around the Japanese tanks adroitly, easily outpacing the tanks' turret rotation speed and eviscerating the heavily-armored vehicles with shots from these metal anchors or their handheld cannons. A plane flew too low, and it was shot full of holes by the robot's assault rifle. Fighters, bombers, helicopters, tanks, ships, infantry – nothing could withstand its might.

Tokyo had fallen within hours, its brave Japanese defenders slaughtered in droves or pushed out of the city limits.

Government structures, religious centers, any buildings of notable Japanese influence – they were all razed to the ground, empty or not.

But it wasn't over yet– Genbu Kururugi had lived, along with most of the Diet, and the military brass. In the countryside, the Japanese military rallied alongside the Yakuza, the police forces, and any volunteer fit to handle a weapon. Japan's large, isolated clans took up modern armaments of all eras and origins, prepared to fight to the last man, woman, and child.

But one week later, instead of the expected call for a do-or-die resistance by the government... a different announcement was made.

Genbu Kururugi was dead.

Dead by ritual suicide, a traditional short sword lodged in his gut, and a note beside his body describing the futility of Japanese resistance.

Chaos reigned. The people were torn apart by differing plans of action, mainly split between surrender, retreat to the Chinese Federation, and the original plan of full resistance.

Decisions came too late. The Britannians swept across the country, massacring civilians by the tens of thousands. Villages, towns, and cities were razed to the ground, the soil was salted, and any survivors were brutally beaten, killed, or taken as prisoners and personal servants by Britannian officers. Men were made to watch as their wives and children were beaten and raped before they themselves were tortured and killed. The lauded Britannian military decorum and protocol dissolved on the spot, from the highest officer to the lowliest enlisted man.

The subjugation of Japan was Britannia's ultimate travesty; and for the rest of the world, it was only the beginning.

Jin was torn from his melancholy ponderings as his cell phone buzzed. He glanced down at the caller ID – _Naoto Kozuki_. "Let's see what that little bastard wants now," he grunted to himself.

Naoto was technically a half-breed – half Britannian and half Japanese – so in the current state of the nation, he could choose to live large or die in a gutter. He could only pray that, for the kid's own sake, he was choosing the former. "'Sup, kiddo?" Jin greeted casually, jumping down from his perch and walking to his beater 2002 Toyota Tacoma pickup.

"'_Sup'?! Our country just fell in less than a week to those Britannian bastards, public executions are being carried out en-masse in the streets, and our entire race has been labeled as lower than dirt, and __**you're trying to act fucking cool?!**__" _the younger man barked back harshly.

'_Well, that answers that…'_ Jin sighed internally. "Testing the waters, short stuff; cool your jets," he grunted back, giving the key a hard twist in the ignition; the engine barely managed to sputter to life. "I'm just shocked that you didn't get your ass hauled back to Britannia by your dear ol' dad when this shitstorm started."

"_The bastard tried, but I sure as hell wasn't just gonna leave mom and Kallen here to fend for themselves," _Naoto replied angrily, _"That fucker was gonna have to knock me out and strap me down just to get me out of the country!"_

"I don't doubt it," Jin said calmly, trying to cool the Kozuki's temper. "Where are you now? I'm just leaving Yokosuka."

"_I'm holed up with everybody at Ohgi and Tamaki's place in Shinjuku; the building managed to survive the strike, but just barely. Watch out on your way over, though, there's still some skirmishing going on between some remnant GSDF units and the Britannian Army; and even without those, the damned Brit bastards are shooting anybody that looks even remotely Japanese, so keep your head low."_

The latter had potential to be quite troublesome. At five-foot-ten with coal-black eyes and long black hair tied back in a low ponytail, Jin was almost stereotypically Japanese; it was one of the reasons that the rest of his family had been targeted almost immediately by Britannian Marine 'Death Squads'. "Got it; thanks for the heads-up," Jin replied, putting up his best façade of nonchalance.

In reality, he was sweating bullets and eyeing the 9mm Minebea PM-9 machine pistol that rested in his passenger seat, scavenged from the corpses of dead GSDF soldiers in Kanagawa.

"_I can't emphasize this enough, Jin: __**Be careful**__,"_ Naoto spoke in an oddly stern voice. _"If you can't make it over here without running into trouble, don't risk it; there are others around that neighborhood. Don't throw away your life on our account."_

"Geeze, I got it, junior," Jin tried to chuckle, but found it catching in his throat, "Since when were you the older one? I'll be there in an hour, tops. See you then." Cutting off Naoto's protests, he flipped the phone shut and tossed it into the cup holder. Focusing fully on the horizon beyond the empty freeway he was currently on, his first notice was a Britannian Army Abrams tank, forming a blockade with a pair of Humvees across the highway; a gap on either side of the tank and the cars created a bottleneck for ID checks. "Shit," Jin hissed vehemently, _'There's no turn-offs before that checkpoint, and they're liable to fire on me if I spin a U-turn… Just _shit_! They're running interior checks, too… My forger Humanitarian card might get me by, but the pistol is a dead give-away…'_

Before he could think further, he was already in the relatively short line for the right-hand checkpoint. _'What the hell do I do?!'_

The answer was short, shitty, and liable to get him killed anyway: _'Pray to every fucking Kami you can name.'_

And so he started rapidly shooting them off, also quietly thanking his dear grandmother – Spirits rest her soul – for instilling a solid Shinto faith in him before her passing. Five minutes later, he had hidden the pistol in the plastic rail casing under his seat, and gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles and crossed fingers. As an afterthought, he took out a blue and white bandana and tied it around his right bicep, as he had seen some Japanese UN workers wearing in Kanagawa.

The Humanitarian card just _might_ work – after all, he was carrying scavenged MREs and supplies from the warehouses at Yokosuka in cardboard boxes in the bed of the truck.

The pair of Britannian infantrymen beside the tank waved him forward, and he cautiously rolled to a stop beside them. Both were decked out in the standard gear of the Marine landing force – grey cargo pants and combat jackets, black six-inch combat boots, and olive-drab tactical vests. One sported the grunt-standard helmet and respirator/HUD mask, while the other, a Sergeant by the triple chevrons on his shoulders, wore only the helmet. Both held _Fabrique Nationale _FAMAS G4 assault rifles.

Jin rolled down the window, and the Sergeant stepped forward. "Identification, please," he drawled in boredom. Jin blinked; the man's evident apathy was a good sign. Passing the forged Humanitarian card, complete with false name and date of birth, he tapped the steering wheel anxiously, trying his damnedest to feign nonchalance. After what seemed like eternity, the soldier nodded in satisfaction and passed the card back, at which the young man barely restrained a sigh of relief. "Step out of the vehicle, please," the masked man spoke, stepped up and slinging the rifle over his shoulder.

Jin complied slowly, opening the door and stepping to the side; the soldier planted a foot on the inside of the cab, and gave a cursory glance around the front. He checked the glove compartment, checked for any false panels on the dashboard, and tossed aside the blanket that covered the narrow space behind the front seats in the two-man cab; the Japanese man turned deadly stiff as he saw something in the soldier's hand, a glint of black metal. The Britannian emerged holding a black Glock 17 pistol.

First thought: _**'Damn you to hell for eternity, Tamaki!'**_ Their group's resident idiot had been his last passenger three days ago, and both men had been armed for the security's sake as they scavenged around in southern Chiba prefecture, near the harbor. Evidently, the dumbass had left his gun in Jin's truck.

"Got an explanation for _this, __**Eleven?**_" the masked soldier hissed, shoving the weapon in Jin's face, barrel-first.

"P-personal security sake; a lot of the other workers have been getting raided by violent refugee mobs in the ruin areas, and some of us started carrying pistols for our own protection," Jin managed to stutter out an admirable excuse; he actually prided himself on that one a little.

The grunt showed no signs of stepping down, but the bored Sergeant yanked the pistol out of his partner's grip, "Ease up, Marcus; that guy's card doubles as a PPS license, so he's legit."

_This_ little tidbit was new to Jin; he hadn't known that Relief Worker cards could also be used as Personal Protection System licenses. This could prove quite useful in the future.

"Alright, you're clear; move along." Jin nodded in affirmation and unspoken relief, taking the Glock from grunt and climbing back in. He drove off, sweating all the way, since one of the Humvees was tracing his path with its .50 caliber machine gun.

Three miles and out of sight, he finally heaved a great sigh of relief, and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Hopefully won't be crossing anymore of those now that I'm in the central containment area," Jin grinned to himself victoriously.

**-X-X-X-**

Jin managed to maneuver his way through the ruins of the Shinjuku Metropolitan Sector with little incident after the checkpoint. Tokyo had been a blur, flying by at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour as he had kept to the shoulder and made a suicide run down the lone standing freeway through the area.

He pulled up in front of what appeared to be the last serviceable building in the area – Ohgi and Tamaki's apartment complex. Ohgi Kaname was a twenty-five-year-old teacher at Shinjuku Secondary School, with a Bachelor's and a teaching certificate in Physics. His salary was sufficient for him to buy out the apartment complex, and rent it out to his friends and their families.

Ohgi's roommate, Tamaki Shinichiro, was the young resident dullard loudmouth. Orphaned when his alcoholic father and his sweet, innocent mother had been murdered by debt collectors from the Mob, the eighteen-year-old knew little more than drinking, brawling, and generally charging in guns-a-blazing. Of course, his infamous luck meant that he was almost immediately put out of action in every engagement he pressed in on. It seemed to run in the family; his elder and only brother had been killed by the first wave of missile strikes while out for a walk on the beach. That little bit of sad irony had the young man in near hysterics as bombs fell around him for the first three days.

The former managed to keep the latter out of trouble _most of the time_, but sometimes he had to pass the leash off to other people who couldn't keep him in line quite as well. For Jin, the solution was a quick swipe across the head, basically equivalent to a swat with a rolled-up newspaper; unfortunately, even subconsciously, Tamaki had a habit of getting everyone around him into some form of trouble.

Pocketing the Glock that had nearly gotten him killed, as well as shoving the PM-9 into a stolen GSDF rucksack along with some other basic essentials, Jin gathered up the cases of supplies from the truck bed and, locking the truck's door on his way past, ducked through a hole in the ground floor wall to the stairwell.

Apartment 3A, the largest in the complex. Jin knocked twice out of common courtesy before kicking the door in; he was greeted with half a dozen gun barrels and for some odd reason, an RPG. "I come bearing gifts," he drawled sarcastically, gesturing with the boxes in his arms, "Now put the guns down before I decide to keep them to myself."

The first one to do so was a redheaded eighteen-year-old with green eyes and a red headband, wearing plain blue jeans and a black hoodie; this was Naoto Kozuki. "You all in one piece?" Naoto asked half-jokingly.

"Thankfully," Jin grinned back. "Oh, and that reminds me…" He picked out his target, another eighteen-year-old brunette male resting on the sofa; he had light copper eyes and also wore a red headband, black sweatpants, and a brown sweatshirt. Jin set down the boxes, and quickly packed as much force as he could into a gut-punch that knocked the wind out of the hapless younger man. "That damned Glock of yours that you left in my truck nearly got me killed at a Britannian checkpoint, you stupid _manuke_!"

"GAH! Christ, Jin, ease up, would ya?!" Tamaki managed to wheeze, clutching his rattled insides and trying to form a coherent excuse, "And I've been looking for that thing for like three days now!"

"Well take it and quit leaving it around where it's gonna get people in trouble!" Jin barked gruffly, tossing the weapon - on safe, of course - into Tamaki's lap. "I only got away with it because these Relief Worker cards double as PPS licenses; and since I'm the only one of us that has one, I somehow doubt that you or anyone else is going to get that lucky. What I'm saying is that with all this shit going down, Tamaki, you're gonna need to learn to be more careful."

"Alright, alright…" Tamaki grumbled dejectedly, pocketing the pistol hastily. "So then what's the plan from here? We're stuck in this dump while Tokyo's steadily crumbling around us, and those damned Brit choppers are bringing down more with each passing second!"

There was a heavy sigh from the back of the room, and the occupants turned to face their resident landlord, Ohgi Kaname, who sat in an overstuffed armchair. He had thick black hair, with a single strand hanging down in his face, and blue eyes; he wore a pair of black cargo pants, and a heavy brown bomber jacket with a six-point gold star stitched onto the upper left chest. "Look, the point is, whether the rest of the country acknowledges it or not, Japan is at war with Britannia. Most of the Self-Defense Force managed to escape into the country; there are rumors floating around division-sized groups that have taken refuge in the Hida Mountains and Hokkaido."

"Yeah, and just how the hell does that help _us?!_" Tamaki barked impatiently, only to be silenced by a cold glare from Naoto. "Sorry…" he muttered sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"_My point is_, we may be down, but we're sure as hell not out," Ohgi replied firmly. "The Japanese still maintain a large part of our military resources; and with the Six Houses' surrender, the National Advisory Council established by the Britannians has managed to secure the rest of the intact resources, to be stored away 'for usage at a later juncture'.

The Six Houses, now the National Advisory Council, was an assembly of the oldest, most influential clans in Japan. Officially, the Diet held the majority of control over government affairs; unofficially, Genbu Kururugi looked to the Six Houses to make most of the decisions, and relayed their consensus to the Diet members, who generally followed suit. It was a relatively similar process to the EU's democracy with the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President.

"So in essence, by betraying the people, the Six Houses have secured resources for future retaliation," Jin summarized, quietly impressed with the idea.

"That's it in a nutshell." The group now sat in silence, glancing around at each other unsurely.

"So…" Naoto finally drawled hesitantly, "… Where does that leave _us_?"

Ohgi shrugged noncommittally. "The school was demolished in the second airstrike, so I'm kind of out of a job. Plus, I don't think the Britannians will accept a _Japanese_ diploma or teaching certificate. So basically, I'm stuck with certifications that aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and no means of making a living from here on out."

Tamaki nodded, "I barely finished Secondary in the first place! My only option was manual labor under _our_ system!" Naoto grimaced in agreement.

"I have _some_ automotive-mechanical certifications, but my skills are mediocre at best."

"I think my boss's fishing boat is still down the coast somewhere, and he was killed up in Chiba, so it's basically fair game at this point," Jin shrugged. "Brits and Japs both gotta eat, after all – doesn't matter what race I am, so long as the fish is good." The group nodded in agreement.

"So it's settled – Jin's gonna be the big money-maker here," Ohgi announced out of the blue. Jin shot him an incredulous look, and immediately protested.

"H-hey, I'm just one man! That trawler's skeleton crew needs at least five to do business!"

"So pick four of our guys, take 'em down to the boat, show 'em the ropes, and go get us some fish and some cash," Naoto shrugged nonchalantly, "Simple as that."

"No, it's _not_!" Jin insisted, "I was only working as a grunt myself! _I_ don't even know all of the ropes! I'd need to actually _hire out_ people to do work and instruct us!"

This brought a deep frown to Ohgi's features. "He has a point," the eldest in the room admitted begrudgingly, "None of us have any substantial amount of cash left, and what little we have is going to be useless once the Britannians install their own economic system. And last I checked, the yen is barely a hundredth of a Britannian pound-sterling."

Everyone groaned in annoyance, and collapsed simultaneously into their respective seats. "… So then what the hell are we supposed to do, try and pickpocket Britannian soldiers or something?" Tamaki grumbled. Naoto, Jin, and Ohgi simply fixed him with matching stares of 'Are you really that stupid?'.

"We could pick off patrols and sell their gear to the up-and-coming resistance factions," Jin offered calmly.

"All we've got are pistols and this one RPG," Ohgi pointed out with a deadpan look, "You'd have to be either unbelievably skilled or ridiculously lucky to be able to pull off that routine consistently. On top of that, the Britannian soldiers have regular radio checks with their patrols."

"We're in the middle of an urban warzone!" Jin shot back easily, "They're gonna lose people every once in a while, and the Army doesn't have time to be investigating each and every poor sumbitch that gets offed in the 'ghettos'!"

"We still shouldn't risk it, Jin," Naoto said sternly. Jin tossed him a cold, incredulous stare.

"You guys aren't up to it, then? I'll do it myself if I have to!"

"You're talking about _killing people_, Jin!" Ohgi protested immediately.

"I'm talking about killing _soldiers_, Ohgi!" Jin snapped harshly, "They're trained killers, and the only ones who should _kill_ are those who are prepared to _be killed!_"

"I'm with Jin on this one!" Tamaki piped in, grinning. "Those bastards have tortured, raped, and killed thousands of us; why the hell shouldn't we pay them back?!"

"Yeah!" one of their other friends, Toru Yoshida, agreed heatedly, "We need to pay these fuckers back for all they've done to us!"

"_Nippon Banzai!_" Kento Sugiyama jumped to his feet, throwing a fist in the air. A few of the others cheered along in agreement, and soon, all but a few in the room were chanting the phrase with a passion.

Jin smirked victoriously at Naoto and Ohgi, who stood off to the side frowning.

"This is a mistake, Jin…"

"You'll see the results in due time, Naoto, and you'll be thanking me."

* * *

_**End Chapter 1**_

_**Manuke**_** - Vulgar form of idiot (jackass was among the translations)**

**End Note: Yes, this is approved in full by Allora Gale. I like Jin; he has a lot of potential for development, which I will be doing here.**

**Anybody else find it weird how, in canon, Kallen, Naoto, Ohgi, and Tamaki are referred to by their actual first names, while other Japanese characters like Tohdoh, Inoue, Sugiyama, Yoshida, etc. are referred to by their surnames? The inconsistency just irks me to no end.**

**Updates are to be decided by life - My life, that is. And as well all know, I like my Fanfiction, but my life apparently thinks otherwise.**

**FAMAS G4 is a stylistic fusion of the FN FAMAS G2 and the FN P90; basically a FAMAS-type stock with the P90's topside mag. I keep looking at the Britannian Army's rifles of choice, but I just couldn't peg an effective modern comparison, so I made one for myself. **

**Stay frosty, ladies and gents. And Happy New Year!**

**-KFR**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – **_**Welcome to the Neighborhood**_

Within the next week, Jin and his comrades had assembled a small ten-man strike force, nearly five thousand rounds of 9mm, .45 ACP, and 5.56 NATO ammunition, and enough military surplus urban camouflage material to hide the entire apartment building. Sugiyama, a Secondary graduate with several welding and mechanical drafting certs, had whipped up half a dozen homemade pistol suppressors that matched 9mm barrel threading. Tamaki was given two, just to be on the safe side, and was also told that he _could not_ fire the gun without a suppressor attached.

Jin sat on Ohgi's couch, looking over the matte-black spray painted suppressor. He tossed it around in his hands, glanced down the barrel, and cross-checked the threading with the barrel of his beat-up P9 pistol, Minebea's licensed reproduction of the Sig-Sauer P220. The twenty-year-old nodded in satisfaction and screwed the device on, then yanked the slide back and grinned slightly at the solid metal _snap_ as a round was chambered.

"Is everybody good to go?" Jin turned to face his temporary 'squad', being led by himself and co-commanded by Toru Yoshida. Among his group was the semi-official craftsman Kento Sugiyama, Tamaki, Yoshitaka Minami, Naomi Inoue, and four more of their comparatively faceless associates (to Jin, anyway).

"Let's kill some of these Britannian dogs!" Tamaki whooped enthusiastically.

"This isn't the time to go in all guns blazing, Tamaki," Sugiyama gave Tamaki a solid smack in the arm, prompting the young man to simmer down a bit and grumble as he massaged the battered limb. "The entire idea behind these strikes is discretion in the removal of individual or possibly paired soldiers – that means we have to put them down, _quickly_ and _quietly_."

Jin nodded with a small smirk, "At least somebody's got the idea. We'll be taking up positions in dark and sheltered areas; the rain that's falling to day is even more ideal, since it'll wash away any blood and settle the dust that might otherwise leave impressions or footprints."

Ohgi and Naoto were both present, appearing fairly disturbed. "How do you know so much about this?" Ohgi pressed hesitantly.

"My uncle's a _kyodai_ with the Inagawa-Kai out of Yokohama," Jin replied casually, "And with dad's business with Minebea, mom thought it would be good for me to 'spend time with other members of the family'. Of course, she didn't know anything about uncle's day job at the time; after she found out, obviously, she made me stop hanging around him. It was interesting while it lasted, though." Well, this was certainly new to everybody else.

"So _that's_ where you got all of the military-grade stuff," Tamaki surmised.

"Nope; dad got discounts. Now once again, _is everyone good to go?_"

"I'm set."

"Jacket's a bit baggy, but I'm good."

"Let's do this!"

"Looks like we're all set, boss man," Yoshida offered a thumbs-up as he shoved his pistol into his baggy urban camo jacket. Off to the side, Naoto winced slightly at the attaché title.

"Right," Jin holstered his own pistol in the chest rig which he had picked up for the job, and zipped up his heavy jacket; with winter setting in, coupled with the freezing rain, all of the gear was winter-issue. He donned a black balaclava which revealed only his a strip of flesh around his eyes, threw up his hood, shoved four extra magazines into the pockets of his combat fatigues, strapped up his boots, and oversaw the rest of his party as they did the same. "We'll travel in two teams. I'll lead Team One, which will be Tamaki, Inoue, Takahashi, and Shin; Yoshida, you'll take Team Two with Sugiyama, Minami, Aoi, and Han. Are there any final questions before we go out?"

"What's our quota for the day?" Inoue piped up, tightening the drawstrings of her hood.

"Between all of us, we want at least two squads' worth of gear and weapons – that's twenty men. Sound good?" With nods all around, Jin finished out by passing earpieces and handheld radios to half of the group. "This operation will be carried out in pairs– you will keep your partner in sight _at all times_, got it?" More nods. "Keep in constant contact; radio all movements to the rest of us. We're operating on frequency 202.9 megahertz. Stay within contact distance, which is a maximum radius of nine hundred meters. We'll regroup at the south edge of Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden at noon."

Jin gave a final, cursory glance around the room, before taking a deep breath and declaring, "I don't fancy myself a military commander or any of that shit. When I look at each and every one of you, I don't see soldiers; I see my friends… My family. However, that doesn't mean that we can't put on a good show and act the part for Britannia. No matter how small the gesture may seem – if we managed to pull this off, we're showing those imperialist bastards that the Japanese people will not be put down.

"**We will not be silenced, for that is the indomitable spirit of the Japanese!"**

Tamaki grinned widely beneath his mask and pumped a fist in the air in agreement, "Hell yeah! We'll show 'em all! _Nippon Banzai!_"

"_**NIPPON BANZAI!"**_

Tamaki's grin was infectious; Jin found a similar one stretching across his face. "Well, that's enough cheesy goddamned speeches for me! Let's get out there!"

"_Right!"_ The team gathered their packs full of rations for the waiting periods, and set out in the misty morn.

**-X-X-X-**

"Radio check! All pairs, sound off!"

"_This is Inoue; Tamaki and I are in position on the third floor of the Fifth Street department store."_

"_Takahashi reporting; me and Shin are holed up in an alley nearby, just off of Osaka Boulevard. Everything's quiet so far." _

"_Yoshida here, I've got a good view from the roof of the Shinjuku-sach ome Station." _

"_It's Sugiyama – Minami and I are right below you, Yoshida."_

Jin waited for a moment before clicking the send button rapidly a few times. "Aoi, Han? You guys alright over there?"

"… _Sorry, Jin, radio interference across the tracks; me and Han are holed up in a café, right next to a two-man patrol. We're gonna line up the shot and take these bastards down!" _

"Make sure there's no one else nearby before you take it, Aoi," Jin warned, simultaneously fumbling with the binoculars around his next. He was hiding in a burned-out bus on a section of overpass near the station; the café in question, if his hunch was correct, was directly within his line of sight. He spotted a pair of Britannian infantrymen moving past the location, just as expected. "Alright guys, I've got your position in sight – nothing but those two, you're clear to shoot."

"_Sweet… Alright, steady breaths, steady breaths… You got the guy on the outside, Han? Awesome. Here it goes…" _the suppressor obviously did the job, as barely a single cough was heard as the 9mm round lanced out from the doorway, passing cleanly through the glass double doors and into the neck of the nearest soldier, who went down clutching his neck and gargling. His partner whipped around in shock, trying to locate the shooter, when a second, unsuppressed shot rang out, and the trooper's visor shattered as the bullet entered his skull and was stopped inside by his helmet.

"Beautiful kills, guys, beautiful kills!" Jin offered with quiet elation. On the other end, there was a pause before someone, most likely Aoi from the closeness of the sound, started heaving.

"_Oh, gimme that… This is Han, Aoi's trying to work out his first kill – I'm gonna give him a second and get those two inside. Picture still clear, Jin?"_ Jin glanced through the binoculars once more and saw nothing but the two bodies, lying in a pair of quickly-draining bloody pools.

"You're still good, Han." Han gave no audible acknowledgement, but Jin watched a man in his late twenties stick his head out of the doors and glance in either direction before tossing a tablecloth out – _'This guy's a pro,'_ Jin mentally nodded – and shifting the two dead soldiers onto it. Han dragged the pair back in, closing the doors softly behind him, and there was no indication of action other than a pair of bullet holes and matching spider webs of cracks in the door.

"_Hey Jin, we got lucky; one of these guys has a grenade launcher on his rifle, and the other one has a shotgun for a secondary!"_

"We'll be keeping those, of course," Jin grinned back. "Throw the gear in a duffle and check for a dumpster in the back; it's not gonna get emptied for a long time, and you're wearing gloves."

"_Roger… Here, I'm gonna pass the piece back to Aoi while I take care of this." _There was some crackling as it shifted, and it went silent.

"You doing alright, Aoi?"

"… _P-peachy, boss," _the young man stuttered back unsurely, _"I-it's my first kill."_

"Let me give you some advice, kiddo," Jin offered, leaning back in the shredded bus seat and slinging an arm over the back casually, "Remember that kill. No matter how much you might want to forget it, you must instead _burn it into your mind_ – and then remember _why_ you killed that man. _Why_ you keep killing them, and _who_ you are killing them _for_. Now, _who_ exactly are we killing for, Aoi? _What_ are we killing for?"

"… _W-we're killing for Japan, Jin,"_ Aoi replied, gaining a bit more steel to his voice, _"We're killing so that our brothers and sisters, and our children won't have to."_

"Got it in one, kiddo," Jin smiled gently, "Couldn't have put it better myself. Say, can I quote that?"

"_The hell you asking me for? You're the boss; you can do whatever the hell you want."_

"I'm just another guy, Aoi, but thanks for the vote of confidence. Now, finish up in there and move along – try that _koban_ across the street."

"_Alright."_ The line went dead, and Jin scanned the street as Aoi and Han relocated, with their new loot in the grey waterproof duffel that was slung over Han's shoulder.

"I'll check those bodies for prints myself later, and maybe move them closer to the main patrol routes," Jin promised himself quietly, "After all, those guy still have families back home that they should be returned to." He pocketed the binoculars and retrieved his P9, holding it at the ready in a two-handed grip as he exited the bus. Scanning the broken overpass and straining his ears over the pounding rain, he instinctively snapped back against the bus as voices sounded nearby.

Peering out cautiously, Jin spotted his targets – a pair of Britannians, apparently a scout-sniper team from the M24 rifle slung over one's shoulder. _'Perfect for this position,'_ he mentally cheered. Ducking back further and careful leaning the barrel on the bottom edge of the bus's broken windshield, he lined up the sights carefully with the sniper's head. _'Steady… Just like Aoi was saying, steady breaths, squeeze it slooowly…' _

The gun coughed, and the sniper dropped suddenly, his visor exploding inwards in a spray of shattering plastic and blood. His partner, the spotter, jerked back in surprise – the motion made Jin's second shot fly past his head, and gave the soldier time enough to draw his sidearm.

"**Freeze!"**the Britannian shouted, somewhat redundantly, as he dove for cover behind a car. Jin, already out of sight, crept along the outside of the bus opposite the soldier. He made it halfway across before chancing a peek over the edge of the bus window – the soldier still thought he was at the front.

"You'll never take me alive, you fucking _gaijin!_" Jin shouted, the rain muddling his voice and making the source harder to determine. For all the Britannian knew, he was still at the front end. "But I'll take you… DEAD!"

Jin burst out from the back end of the bus, surprising the soldier. The Britannian's aim was completely skewed by his quick spin; and as such, Jin had no problem dashing forward, crouched low to the ground, and practically lifting the man up with a heavy shoulder to the chest plate, which knocked the soldier's gun out of his hand.

The man flopped to the ground with a painful crack on the opposite side of the road, sluggishly feeling around for another weapon; Jin shot him in the hand to discourage this. **"P-please, I'll give you anything, just**_** don't kill me!**_**" **the soldier begged, desperation in his voice. Jin reached forward and yanked the respirator from the trooper's face, tossing it aside carelessly and examining his victim coldly. The man- no, boy was more like it, looked barely twenty, and had genuine fear etched into his face. Short brown hair, blue eyes – a completely average face.

… For an instant, Jin felt a flash of pity. An innocent, scared, brainwashed boy, drawn into the bloody and dirty affairs of war by promises of fame and glory, but in reality, doomed to die in a foreign land. "Why are you here?" he asked tonelessly.

"I-I joined out of high school! Two months of basic, a year and a half on reserve, and then they activated me and sent me here with the rest! I-I'm just following orders, they were just Elevens!"

The boy's lifeline of pity snapped and burst into flame. Jin's expression turned cold once more, and he snatched the helmet from the boy's head, tossing it by the respirator before raising his gun. "Yeah?" he replied stonily, "Well you're just Britannian." He squeezed the trigger, and blood splattered across the pavement; the boy stopped squirming.

Taking one last glance, Jin keyed his earpiece. "I just nailed a patrol – sniper team, rifle and all. How's everybody else doing?"

"… _This is Inoue, Tamaki and I are still quiet over here."_

"_This is Shin, I've got the mic for the moment; me and Takahashi got a pair, and he's stripping the gear."_

"Good work, Shin. Inoue, Tamaki, move in and cover those two."

"_Got it, Jin."_

"Yoshida, Sugiyama, how're you guys doing?"

"_This is Yoshida, I'm still in position in the station tower; I've got two more foot patrols in sight along the rail line." _

"_Sugiyama here, Minami's lining up a shot on one of those patrols from the central terminal building. Yoshida, how far is that other patrol from the pair next to us?"_

"… _They just crossed over to Line 3, you're in the clear."_

"_Roger!"_ Jin grabbed the spotter's scope from the dead boy and jogged to the edge of the overpass, dropping to one knee and raising the scope at the area. He saw a near-perfect imitation of Aoi and Han's shots – the nearest fell like a puppet with his strings cut, and his partner jumped around for a second before falling likewise. _"Brits are down; one of 'em has an SMG, and the other's got a carbine." _

"Take everything, as usual, and make sure there are no prints before you toss the bodies out onto the tracks and relocate. Yoshida, that goes for you too."

"_Got it, boss man." _

Everything was proceeding smoothly; six of the twenty-man quota down with the area still shadowed under darkened grey skies, rain falling in endless sheets, and no extraneous military activity in sight.

Jin set about stripping the two dead soldiers down to their skivvies, taking the uniforms for future use and good measure. Serial numbers on guns and gear were filed down with a multi-tool; all electrical power cells were removed to reduce the risk of tracking devices. Of course, the sudden disappearance from Britannia's TACCOM (Tactical Command) screens meant that the army would know that someone was targeting their patrols, so they only had today at most to work before security in the area was increased.

That thought was followed by a sudden afterthought; Jin keyed his mic again. "Hey Han, Takahashi – did you guys disable any electronics on the gear you've recovered?"

"… _Oh, _shit!_ Thanks for the heads, boss man, I totally spaced it." _

"_This is Han, I know the drill and took care of it back in the kitchens. And just a quick warning to everybody: All of the troopers are carrying beacons in the crown of their helmets, and a secondary manual-operation unit in their web belt. And just to be on the safe side, disable any electronic sights, and the respirators too." _

"_Got it."_

"_Sounds good."_

"_Roger." _

"Alright then, boys and girls, we're approaching noon; finish up whatever you're doing, and make your way through cover to the Sendagaya Bus Terminal on the south side of Shinjuku Gyoen." Jin crossed the rifle strap over his chest and settled the rifle on his back over his rucksack, also tightening the strap for the spotting scope's carrier back around his shoulder.

"_We're headed your way – see you in five, boss." _

**-X-X-X-**

"_Yo, Jin,"_ Han's gruff voice crackled over the radio, _"We've got a problem here."_

Jin was seated under an overhang on the roof of the bus station, awaiting the arrival of his friends. "What seems to be the problem, big man?"

"_The Brits are responding a little faster than we expected; there's a pair of Humvees and a Knightmare rolling through to where we left the bodies."_

"Fucking hell," Jin hissed vehemently, "The hell are they doing here? The SDF offed a whole platoon of them two days ago, and they only sent a jeep after _eight hours!_"

"_They must be upping the response times; or else these guys were on break."_

"_My money's on the second one."_

"_Shit, did anybody bring the RPG?"_

"_Why the fuck would we bring an RPG on an anti-personnel mission?!"_

"_Oh, I don't know, _**in case something like this happened?!**_"_

"Both of you shut the hell up and let's think about this rationally!" Jin cut in out of irritation, "Han, you said that you guys got a grenade launcher? How many grenades have you got?"

"_Umm… Oh, we've got four High Explosive Dual-Purpose, and three straight HE. We also snagged a pair of regular frag grenades." _

"Try to get your ass over here and let's see what we can do with that thing. That goes for everybody else, too – where are those Brits right now?"

"_This is Inoue, it looks like they're checking out Minami and Sugiyama's hits on the tracks- wait, the Knightmare is breaking off and heading out onto the J-20. He's turning south… Looks like he's setting up to run the route around Gyoen."_

"Shit, shit, shit…" Yes, this was very, very bad. Those Humvees carried five troops and an M2 .50 caliber machine gun apiece, plus the Knightmare Frame. The Knightmare just made 'Shit' into 'Oh Shit'. "Okay, screw it – Yoshida, give Ohgi and call and have him send someone over here with the RPG and some extra ammo. In the meantime, we need to do something to distract those soldiers."

"_Anybody know how to make an IED?"_

"_I'd need a few household cleaning supplies, a large plastic container, and some form of detonator compound and trigger mechanism." _Oddly enough, it was Inoue who had responded.

"Check any bathrooms nearby while you move in my direction," Jin ordered, "And hold onto those frags, Han – we can use the Comp B inside for a detonator."

"_Gotcha, boss man – we're headed your way now." _The line cut out, and Jin peered out over the edge of his impromptu observation post. Off in the distance, he heard tires squealing, and he ducked back into the shelter and came to his feet.

The M24 rifle was set up on a discarded café table in the middle of the area. Jin took a standing position on the east side of it, and stared down into the streets to the west. Within a few moments, the four-meter-high, slate-grey mecha was ripping across his scope's field of vision. _'So, this is the first fully combat-capable Knightmare Frame, the RPI-11 Glasgow… An impressive machine, to be sure.' _

The Glasgow's central purpose was rapid assault, basically making it a scaled-up infantry unit with those high-velocity anchors, officially termed Slash Harkens. However, with its impressive speed came a distinct lack of armor – realistically only about fifteen to twenty millimeters of layered sheet steel with titanium reinforcement – and therein a distinct vulnerability to conventional anti-vehicle measures, and small arms of a high enough caliber. An assault rifle probably couldn't do much, but a high-velocity anti-material rifle? An outdated 14.5x114mm, or even a .50 cal BMG would probably be able to leave a pretty nice hole in that pretty paneling.

Unfortunately, all Jin had for the moment was a 40mm grenade launcher, two conventional frags, a handful of assault rifles and pistols, and one M24 sniper rifle.

A sharp crack off in the distance startled Jin out of his contemplation, and even the Glasgow skidded to a stop and turned to look back in the direction from which it had come. After a few seconds, in which the pilot seemed to be communicating with the ground troops, the Knightmare zoomed off to the west, where a machine gun could be heard chattering. This sound was interrupted shortly after by a low _whump_, and a reasonable explosion could be seen. _'At least Han knows how to use that thing…'_ "Report in! What the fuck was that?"

"_This is Aoi, we were traveling with Takahashi and Shin when one of the Humvees spotted us and started firing. Han managed to take it out with the grenade launcher, but the Britannians managed to pile out before that, and he took a round to the shoulder."_

"Get to cover, that damned Knightmare is gonna be right on top of you in a few moments, and that thing's rifle packs a helluva bigger punch than a puny fifty! Inoue, Yoshida, Sugiyama, where the hell are you guys?"

"_We've grouped up under the 305, and we're headed towards __Hatomori__ Elementary right now. Inoue managed to find the supplies for the IED, and we're gonna put it together once we get to the school."_

"Good; stay out of sight, there's still one more Humvee roving around here somewhere, and they've probably called for reinforcements when the first one got trashed. I'm gonna start heading towards you guys; I'll meet you at the school!" Letting the connection die, Jin threw the sniper's strap back over his shoulder, but kept it in hand as he vaulted over the edge of the small outlook and onto the rooftop. Jogging across the flat concrete surface, rain still pounding away, he picked up speed to a run, and jumped across the narrow street to the roof of the next three-story building. The impact was jarring, but he had remembered to bend his knees, and still only staggered a bit. "Never was any good at this French parkour shit…" he grumbled to himself.

He repeated the process four more times until reaching the street east of the school, and followed it down until he was directly adjacent to the complex. Just their luck – the second Humvee was idling in the cratered parking lot, the gunner and driver still inside, while the other three passenger stood about in guard positions.

The Japanese man threw his body down prone on the concrete, a fair ways back from the edge, with the barrel just barely passing over the lip of the roof. He popped the caps on either side of the scope, and pressed the butt of the rifle firmly into his shoulder, leaning a cheek on the rest and staring at the driver with 4X magnification. _'That glass is probably relatively bulletproof against small arms, but a sniper round should do it…'_ he pondered. Jin was nowhere near a certified sniper, but he had shot enough .22 rifles and played enough video games as a young boy to remember the basics.

'_The rain is falling straight and even, no indication of excess wind right now… The bastard's barely a hundred and fifty meters out, easy shot for this system… The walkers and the gunner are all looking away, towards the gunfire… This is just too fucking easy.'_ Jin took slow, steady breaths, and slowly applied pressure to the trigger…

_CRACK!_ The 7.62x51mm NATO M118LR Hollow Point round burst through the windshield, leaving a fairly clean hole, and straight into the driver's head. The poor unsuspecting man's helmet did little to stop the bullet at first penetration, but stopped it from leaving his skull, all but ensuring an instant kill. The man's comrades swiveled around, but by the time they did, Jin had already ejected the spent cartridge, and loaded a fresh round to set in the gunner.

The second shot wasn't quite as clean; the wind picked up slightly, and the haste from his aiming readjustment sent it a bit low. Nonetheless, the bullet still managed to clip the gunner's neck, and apparently an artery therein, as a massive spurt of blood erupted, and he dropped into the cab of the vehicle limply.

The three soldiers on foot had located Jin by now, and raised their rifles to fire. The shots mostly flew over his head, with some others chipping the concrete lip, prompting the rookie shooter to flatten his body and lower the rifle out of sight. He crawled back to the opposite side of the roof, placing the rifle on his back and drawing the FAMAS from the duffel, simultaneously lowering himself carefully down to street level.

As he was climbing down, however, he heard more gunfire. He keyed his earpiece again. "Guys? Did you find the second team?"

"_This is Tamaki, Inoue passed me the mic while she's working on the bomb. We're putting some fire down on the second truck, though it looks like they already took a hit – that was your doing, I presume?"_

"Yeah, turns out this rifle's pretty handy," Jin replied, jumping the last few feet and landing in a crouch, rifle in hand, "I'm coming around the side of a building across the street to the east – do me a favor and don't shoot me, neh?"

"_Aw, if you insist, boss." _

"Shut up and keep them pinned so I can gun them down, smartass." Jin rounded the corner and raised the rifle, a round already in the chamber. He thumbed the fire selector to semi-automatic, and set the iron sights on the nearest soldier. Three quick squeezes of the trigger had the Britannian falling dead, missing a chunk of his shoulder and a small part of his chest. The remaining two didn't seem to heed Jin's return, still firing at the school. The second was dropped by a volley from the doorway of the school itself, and the last was taken by Jin's next few shots.

Once the soldiers were confirmed dead, the group reconvened next to the school. No one appeared to be injured, and Inoue was holding a sealed bucket. "Where exactly did you learn to make a dirty bomb?" Jin raised a brow at the young woman, who had the grace to blush.

"You're not the only one with questionable family ties," she replied simply. Jin just shook his head and looked to Minami and Sugiyama.

"You said that you guys picked up an SMG?" At their nods, he offered the rifle, "I'll trade you."

Sugiyama nodded and took the gun, while Minami unzipped their duffel and tossed the weapon and two loaded clips to Jin.

'_MP5, eh? Good gun, very reliable…'_ The 9mm MP5A4 was the workhorse of military and special forces worldwide, and was especially valued for its durability under adverse conditions. "Let's gather up those guys' guns," he gestured to the Humvee, "And we'll see if we can't get ourselves a new ride for the trip home."

"We'd better make it fast!" Yoshida called down from the school's roof, "It looks like Han and them managed to finish off the foot soldiers, but that Glasgow is tearing shit up with that damned rifle. We need to get that Comp B over here ASAP so we can finish the bomb; Ohgi said he wasn't willing to risk sending someone over here with the RPG." Jin scoffed slightly in disappointment at his friend's apparent lack of support, but shook it off and settled for calling Han.

"Yo Han, how's it going over there?" The response was riddled with static, as well as automatic weapons fire in the background.

"… _We managed to finish the patrol group, but that fucking Knightmare's got us pinned in a line of houses along the edge of the Garden. I'm gonna send Aoi over to you guys at the school with the frags – in the meantime, I'm gonna see what I can do to this bastard with the grenade launcher."_

"Alright, just be careful." The line cut, and the air was eerily silent before more gunfire and a return explosion was heard. "Let's strip these guys and lay 'em out in front of the school; we'll take the truck as compensation for the delay. Minami, you any good with cars?"

"I took a few auto classes with Naoto, but I don't know anything about military gear," Minami shrugged in reply.

"Just check under the hood and around the exterior for any visible electronics and trackers; I'll disable the shit inside myself. Let's move!" The team set about the task, placing the collected rifles and equipment in Jin's empty duffel after disabling everything.

"Seriously, how the hell did you learn all this shit, Jin?" Tamaki piped up as he zipped the bag shut, "There's no way that your uncle taught you _all _of this military stuff."

"Believe or not, I've read enough books, played enough video games, and seen enough movies to know what I'm doing, Tamaki," Jin replied simply, feeling around the back of the vehicle for a latch. He found it and yanked the back compartment shield up, "Now throw the stuff back here, and everybody pile in. It's gonna be a tight squeeze since it's only built for five, so one of us is gonna have to lay in the back with the trunk open."

"I'll do it," Yoshida volunteered as he hopped down from the roof.

"_Guys!"_ a voice called out; Jin glanced over to the other side of the parking lot, and spotted Aoi running towards them. "I've got the frags," the young man panted, holding out the grenades.

"Good work," Jin nodded with a grin, "I've got this; everybody's gonna want to stay _far_ away from me in case I don't, though." He moved away, and the group wisely heeded his advice, piling into and behind the vehicle.

Gingerly, Jin set one of the grenades down, and slowly began unscrewing the head of the other, careful to avoid disturbing the safety pin. Once the primer and trigger mechanism was removed from the main body of the device, he was left with a metal ball full of inert Composition B. Once doing the same to the second grenade (and not exploding, thank the Kami), he passed the stuff over to Inoue, who grinned somewhat disturbingly as she accepted the highly explosive material and grenade triggers.

Barely two minutes and a roll of electrical tape later, the young woman was looking exponentially more dangerous holding an IED in a bucket. The central trigger was one of the grenade triggers, dropped in through a hole in the lid, and the Comp B was submersed in the mixture and immediately next to the central primer. Inoue had even devised a rudimentary remote – a disassembled cell phone and battery, which when turned on would generate a spark that would ignite the grenade fuse.

"One extremely volatile improvised explosive device, at your service," she gave a sickeningly sweet smile.

… The men really didn't know what to say to that. Jin just stared at the bucket, then Inoue, then back at the bucket… And settled for nodding slowly. "Four second fuses?"

"One second to spark the main fuse, three to burn, and one more for the reaction," she replied simply, "Just call my number, and that Glasgow's gonna be missing a large portion of its body."

"Got it," Jin nodded, prepping the number on his phone – all he had to do was dial nine and press call. "Move this thing over to the side of the main avenue, and we'll get this thing started. There's a wreck blocking the intersection up the street, right?"

"Yep," Yoshida confirmed, "Delivery van's blocking the whole street."

"Perfect; now, we just have to move the bastard over here…"

**-X-X-X-**

Five minutes later, the trap was set, and Jin, Tamaki, Aoi, and Sugiyama were driving the Humvee through a parallel street to Han's location. They parked half a block away, in an alley, and Jin jumped out to rush on foot to the front street.

As he arrived, he stuck his head around the front to see the Glasgow standing in place, tearing up the front of a house with its 25mm assault rifle. He could also see Takahashi and Shin inside, popping out occasionally to take pot shots at the mecha's external cameras with stolen assault rifles. "Han, you still alive up there?" he called out over the radio.

"… _I'm hangin in there, boss man, but I'm walking wounded," _the man replied weakly. _"Are you guys set to nail this fucker?"_

"Yeah, we just need to lure him down the street."

"… _Tamaki's gonna get stuck running a suicide down the boulevard, isn't he?"_

"Now whatever makes you think that?"

"_The last three times we were luring people into a trap."_

"Point taken… Fine, he is the bait. But you're alright with that, right Tamaki?" Jin turned and asked the redheaded firebrand behind him, who simply shrugged.

"Do I get to press the button?" the younger man quirked a brow hopefully.

"If you don't screw this up, and you do your job right, then yes, I will let you press the button," Jin heaved a heavy sigh.

"Then yeah, I'm game for playing bait."

"See, Han? Easy as that."

"_I'm not even going to argue anymore; just get that bastard off of our hands so I can finally pass out in peace."_

"You might want to get that shoulder checked while you're waiting," Jin replied wryly. He turned back around the corner to his two compatriots, "Aoi, I need you to get those guys out of there; Tamaki and I are going to get things rolling."

"Gotcha, Jin." The youngest of the trio circled around the street and went across the back alley, vaulting over a crumbling stone wall and then into the house.

"Sugiyama, are you in place down the way?"

"_I'm in place at the intersection, Jin."_

"Good; we're gonna get started, so get ready to gun it." Jin cut off the radio with a deep sigh, and turned to look at Tamaki. "You ready for this, you crazy sonovabitch?"

Tamaki just grinned somewhat melancholically in reply, "I was born ready to die."

"And yet you have yet to succeed – just a part of your luck, I suppose." Jin raised his MP5, the M24 left back with the others, and sprinted around the corner, firing at the Glasgow's head. "HEY, YOU BRITANNIAN BASTARD! BRING IT, ASSHOLE!"

Though there was no indication of the pilot having heard him, the 9mm rounds bounced off of the exposed central camera, one even making a slight crack in the lens. The gargantuan Knightmare turned to face the new offenders, who were already fleeing down the street; Tamaki was just running like hell, while Jin was keeping pace and firing small bursts backwards as he went.

And they'd be damned if the bastard didn't take the bait. The Glasgow turned its full attention to the pair of runners, and fired a burst that succeeded in shredding the pavement at their feet, and scaring the living shit out of both of them.

"SUGIYAMA! NOW WOULD BE REAL NICE!" Jin called out as they crossed the second block, and the Knightmare dropped its Landspinners to pursue.

The stolen Humvee ripped around the corner in front of them, the back compartment wide open. The fleeing pair immediately dove into the back, landing hard and rolling over to watch their mechanized attacker give chase at high speed. "Tamaki, you would do the honors?" Jin grinned, dialing nine and passing the phone to his partner. Once passing the first street by the school, Tamaki grinned and pressed call.

_Five…_ the Glasgow fired another burst that flew high above the truck.

_Four…_ the Humvee skidded to a stop, and Jin and Tamaki climbed to the roof of the vehicle, watching the Knightmare grow closer.

_Three…_

_Two…_

_One…_

"He's really close…!" Tamaki's grin faltered a bit as the last second came and passed. Jin frowned and raised his submachine gun, prepared to fire a round at the nondescript bomb and set it off manually.

_**BOOOM!**_

The blast was spectacular, and came just as the Glasgow passed by. The shockwave seemed to ripple slowly before completely engulfing the mech, and everything within a ten-meter radius. Jin and Tamaki was thoroughly startled, and completely thrown from the car by the proximity of the explosion, being blown a full four meters backwards into the side of the van that was blocking the street.

As the smoke billowed across the entire area, obscuring everything from view, the rest of the group slowly joined their temporary leader. "… Is it over?" Inoue hedged carefully.

"There's no way in hell that monster survived an explosion like that!" Yoshida grinned confidently.

His confidence evaporated as the smoke cleared, revealing a standing Glasgow, rifle brought to bear on the Humvee.

"… _FUCK_," Minami pretty much summed up their situation.

"The hell was I thinking? I must've fucked up the solution or something!" Inoue thunked herself in the head with the palm of her hand.

"And if the solution didn't react correctly, that means that all that really hit that thing was two frags worth of Comp B…" Jin sighed, raising his arms in surrender.

The Knightmare stopped for a moment, and the cockpit in the back opened, revealing a rather smug Britannian. "Well, that was certainly an impressive plan _and_ explosion," the aristocratic-looking man started smugly, "But it looks like it was all for naught. Get ready to die, Elevens!"

As the man started to reach back into his cockpit to pull the trigger, a shot rang out from somewhere behind him; the pilot took it straight to the head, a bloody spray blossoming from his face as the round exited. The Knightmare remained idle, while the Britannian slumped and fell out.

"… There is _no way _in _hell _that we just got that lucky," Tamaki stated in disbelief.

"_Believe it or not, you just did,"_ Han's voice crackled over the radio. The group looked down the street, past the frozen Knightmare, to see Han standing triumphantly sixty meters away, smirking victoriously and holding an assault rifle at his shoulder. "You can thank me later!" he yelled, "Now get me out of here! I'm about to fuckin' pass out!"

Snapped from their shock momentarily, Inoue and Sugiyama tossed the duffels of weapons into the Humvee, and they, along with Tamaki, Minami, and Yoshida, piled in and drove off after retrieving Han to seek medical attention. This left Jin, Aoi, Takahashi, and Shin to deal with the running, pilotless Glasgow.

"So…" Takahashi drawled, "… Does anybody know how to operate Britannia's premier humanoid autonomous war machine?"

"We can sure as hell try to figure it out," Jin shrugged. He approached the back of the unit, careful to step over the pilot's still-bleeding body, and felt around the back cockpit section for a ladder of some sort. His hand hit a concealed switch, and a single ladder run attached to a cable fell from the open seating section.

Jin tentatively reached out, setting a foot on the rung and a hand on the cable, and was brought straight up to the seat. He settled in, and jerked a bit as the seat automatically retracted into the cockpit housing, "Shit…"

Outside, his friends were panicking slightly. "JIN!" Aoi called out, pounding on the leg, "Are you alright in there?!"

Jin heard his comrade, and tried to find the PA. A small speaker icon sat in the upper corner of the instrument panel, and he pressed it. "Guys? Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear!" Shin shouted back, "We're gonna back off! Try and move that thing!"

"Got it!" The two main joysticks were the most obvious choice, so he tried shifting them around a bit.

"You're moving the arms!"

"Alright…" Next came the pedals on the floor. One touch, and the entire machine shot forward. "Woah! Found it!"

"Great! Turn it around and let's get out of here!" Jin looked around, and tried shifting the joysticks hard to the right and left, but only moved the arms. "Dammit!" His leg shifted a bit, and his knee bumped a panel – the Glasgow spun completely around. "There we go! Alright, find somewhere to perch, and hold on like your frickin' lives depend on it!"

"Since they obviously do…" Takahashi muttered unsurely.

**-X-X-X-**

After fifteen miles, countless turns that nearly killed Jin's four unsanctioned passengers, and several close scrapes to dodge Britannian patrols, the five arrived at Ohgi's apartment. Upon his arrival, Ohgi and Naoto damn near shit themselves at the sight of the massive Britannian robot.

Jin ignored this, opting to simply search around the cockpit for the IFF controls. There was a mini-map display set in the low center of the control panel; after a few presses of buttons, he found that their failed IED had at least knocked out the Knightmare's wireless capabilities. Breathing a sigh of the relief, he located the hatch release, and emerged from the machine – triumphant, battered, and soaked to the bone from the continuous rain. "Hey, Naoto!" he called down, "Still think it was a bad idea?"

Naoto just shook his head, still gaping in disbelief, "I don't fucking believe it. I just don't. Seriously, this is almost cliché!"

"Well, I did most of the work," Tamaki boasted, thumping his friend on the shoulder and grinning madly.

"Tamaki, you and I played bait – Inoue made the bomb, and Han shot the pilot. I just happened to drive it back," Jin deadpanned, "And I'm gonna be the one to hide it."

Tamaki slumped dejectedly, grumbling while Jin and Sugiyama fired up the Humvee and the Knightmare, and the latter followed the former to a parking complex entrance a mile away.

"We'll be hiding our stuff down here for now," Jin told Sugiyama over the Knightmare's radio, which he had managed to key to their handhelds' frequency. "Keep any smaller stuff in the shipping container over there," he gestured with the Knightmare to a container that sat in the corner of the garage, "And just park everything else around it. I'm gonna blow up the main entrance on our way out, so it's only going to be accessible by a maintenance tunnel from the building next door."

"_Roger."_ Sugiyama jumped out of the Humvee, making sure to lock it and keep the keys, as well as seal the turret – the machine gun was dismounted for later use. Jin moved the Knightmare into the corner next to the shipping container, and somehow managed to negotiate it into a kneeling position.

The pair met again at the bottom of the ramp, and they looked back with matching grins. "We did good today, Jin – doesn't matter what Naoto and Ohgi think," Sugiyama clapped him on the shoulder.

"Thanks, Kento… But we're probably never going to be able to pull this off again, you know."

"Unfortunately, that's probably true…" With that, Jin hefted the assault rifle with the under-barrel grenade launcher, and fired a trio of grenades into the rock above the entrance; the section collapsed, effectively sealing off the entire level.

"C'mon – drinks are on me."

"I'm underage, Jin."

"Oh, our government's in itty-bitty pieces all over the streets of Tokyo – I won't tell if you won't."

_**End Chapter 2**_

**End Note: Just because **_**Dauntless**_** is two parts drama to one part action, doesn't mean that I have to abide by the same standard. Plus, as Jin stated above, the government is kind of nonexistent, and the Japanese are fighting for their lives. Basically, I'm gonna be putting up some serious action sequences that will probably take up about a chapter apiece.**

**I know, Jin isn't really portrayed as a 'leader' type, but I figured I'd take a bit of creative license. I mean, come on, an eighteen-year-old Naoto probably wasn't exactly cut out as a resistance leader directly following an invasion and a military occupation. At the same time, Ohgi is almost **_**never**_** portrayed as an outstanding leader – he's mediocre as best. So, there you go.**

**Apart from that FAMAS, weaponry is mostly going to follow real-world standards; I'll be subbing in more advanced and potentially experimental systems as time flows on, though. Britannia will use a mixture of American and British tech, while everybody else uses what they use today. **

**Yes, I've made it abundantly clear in my past works that I am not a big fan of canon CG miracles and all that jazz; however, this is **_**Dauntless**_**. I'm abiding by a different set of rules here. Also, what you see here – this is probably never going to happen again.**

**Final Synapsis: After reading over parts of **_**Dauntless **_**again, as well as a few of the side stories… I've effectively concluded that I pretty cannot hope to properly imitate Allora's writing style. ****I'm too militaristic in my style _and_ personality, and I can just never manage to incorporate most of the little things that she can. **

**No, I don't feel bad about that. I am who I am. Anyone who came for Allora Gale can go _read_ Allora Gale.**

**Stay frosty.**

**-KFR**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 – **_**The Stage Is Set… With a Few Repercussions**_

Jin had expected a few more patrols. Hell, he had expected tanks to start rolling through Shinjuku regularly.

What he and the others of the collection party hadn't expected… Was a thank you.

From the acting Britannian general.

Over a public service announcement.

"_**What these insurgents have shown us today,"**_Major General Andreas Darlton's voice boomed, _**"Is that even when a subject appears broken, he still has potential to rise up and strike us in the back.**_

"_**The loss of these men is tragic, and is, while the smallest in number, the largest loss which we have faced since the end of seven days of intense warfare. These Japanese have showed us that, even while their military machine lies crippled and insignificant in the face of Britannia's finest, the common people are still prepared to take up arms in defense of their homes. And for that, you courageous souls, I personally salute you.**_

"_**However, while I admire your courage; Britannia will not stand for resistance in the face of our victory. Our Glorious Emperor has decreed that if it is the people who choose to resist… Then it is the people who choose to suffer the consequences of their actions. Starting effective immediately, Martial Law has been declared in the provisional Tokyo Concession, which encompasses the area of Tokyo and everything within a hundred kilometer radius of it. All civilian traffic into and out of the area will be stopped, and any unregistered civilians caught within this sector will be punished and then registered under the Britannian Number System with a strike to their names. And if any of the unregistered who are captured is found to be a perpetrator of these acts of terrorism against Sovereign Britannia and her servicemen… Then they will be swiftly and severely dealt with. **_

"_**That is all. All Hail Britannia!"**_ The broadcast cut out with an echo of this cry, followed by a recording of the Britannian National Anthem.

The apartment was silent for several minutes. Finally, Naoto managed to work up the mind to ask, "What exactly just happened here…?"

Tamaki was first to reply excitedly, "B-Britannia just recognized us! They've acknowledged the Japanese as a credible threat!"

"That's not a good thing, Tamaki," Jin deadpanned.

"Oh? And why the hell not?"

"Because, Tamaki…" It wasn't Jin that replied; it was one of the building's tenant's several present relatives.

Touji Nakata was a frail-looking man in his late seventies, with thinning grey hair and cold black eyes that appeared perpetually shut. A retired veteran who had seen the very formation of the Japan Self-Defense Force, Touji was the ultimate source of advice and knowledge in the complex.

"This acknowledgement is not a positive sign in the least," Touji continued, "Because it is an excuse for the Britannians to persecute the Japanese people further. At the same time, this persecution is a method of subduing any potential for future resistance by the Japanese; the people won't fight if their fear of retribution outweighs their desires for freedom and equality."

"So we just have to show them that there's nothing to fear!" Yoshida shot back.

"And how do you propose to do that, hmm?" Touji raised a thin grey brow, settling back in his recliner and folding his hands, "By running out into the streets with guns blazing, only to be cut down by the Britannian Army? You'll only make martyrs out of yourselves, and the Britannians will just give another show of force to put the Japanese down again."

"Well then what do _you_ propose we do then, old man?!" Tamaki shouted, stepping towards Touji angrily. He was shoved back by Jin and Naoto.

"Show some respect, you idiot!" Jin barked, tossing him back onto the couch.

"You're only defending that senile old prune because he's your grandfather!" Tamaki sneered. Jin made to punch him, only be to held back by Naoto; Tamaki grinned victoriously.

The idiot didn't expect to take the blow from Naoto himself. "_Fuck!_" Tamaki growled, reeling and gripping his bruised cheek, "The hell was that for, Naoto?!"

"Jin's right, Tamaki; show some fucking respect," Naoto replied coldly. "Touji's words have done nothing but good for us. _You_ need to cool down and think about what you're doing, or else you're just going to get the rest of us in trouble."

Tamaki scoffed and jumped to his feet, stomping towards the door. "Bullshit! You guys are wasting your time listening to this relic!" He yanked the door open, "Forget it! I'm gonna round up the others, and we're gonna go do what you idiots are too scared to do!"

"And where are you going to get the guns?" Jin frown and quirked a brow, folding his arms, "There's no way in hell that I'm telling you where we stored everything, and even if you knew, you don't know how to get in."

Tamaki growled louder, and punched the wall next to the door. "Fine! Fuck you guys! I've still got my pistol, and so does everyone else! That's all we'll need!"

"You're gonna get yourself, and everybody else that is stupid enough to follow you, killed," Jin deadpanned. Tamaki gave one final shout of frustration and stomped out, slamming the door behind him.

"… That was harsh, Jin," Naoto frowned slightly.

"What? He will, going head-on against the Army with nothing but handguns," Jin rolled his eyes, "And far be it from me to stop him." He turned and walked out of the apartment, headed to his own across the way.

Naoto shook his head, and looked to Touji. "What are we going to do, Nakata-sama?"

Touji shook his head and sighed tiredly. "Sometimes, the best lessons learned are the hard ones. I'm sure that we would all prefer for everyone to live through this particular junction, but I'm afraid that some sacrifices will be necessary."

It was at this point that Ohgi stepped out of the bathroom. "What'd I miss?"

Touji and Naoto exchanged looks, and then stared at him blankly. "You'll see, soon enough…"

**-X-X-X-**

"Tch, we can do this easily…" Tamaki growled from his perch atop a two-story building east Shinjuku, where Britannian military activity had stepped up since their operation two days ago. He had gathered a dozen other young guerillas with handguns and two or three hunting rifles, and they were lying in wait on a street next to Shinjuku Gyoen.

It wasn't nearly as slick of an operation as Jin's; they still had radios, but the ambush party wore simple civvies, and the weather was clear and sunny, providing little to no cover whatsoever.

"Alright everybody, here comes the next patrol…" he called over the channel, eyeing a pair of armed and armored Britannian Humvees as they rounded the corner, machine guns swiveling. "Take out those machine gunners!"

Once the vehicles had passed the first pair of gunmen on either side of the street, the entire street came ablaze. The gunner in the first truck slumped dead with a half-dozen holes in his upper chest and neck, while the second managed to squeeze off a short burst into the air before suffering the same fate.

The drivers started to accelerate, but at the end of the street, a pair of guerillas driving half-scrapped delivery vans veered into the middle of the lane, and the lead Humvee slammed straight into them. The second skidded to a stop, and the passengers piled out and scattered to find cover, only to discover that their ambushers had all fields of fire covered. The Britannian soldiers' body armor was stopped a good number of the small-caliber handgun rounds, but the sheer volume alone from concentrated fire managed to bring them down one by one.

"HAH! Take that, Jin! This is easy!" Tamaki laughed as he fired another round, catching a soldier in the neck and dropping him.

Then the reinforcements showed up.

A second patrol of Humvees arrived, along with a Glasgow. The Knightmare immediately located the closest group of insurgents, and opened up with a hail of 25mm rifle fire. The massive round shredded the building's façade, and tore up the shocked fighters as well.

"FUCK! They've got reinforcements!" one of the others shouted redundantly, "I'm out of here, man!"

"WAIT! Get your ass back here, you coward!" Tamaki shouted as the other teen ran off across the rooftops. He barely made it to the second building when an AH-6 light attack helicopter rose from the street, miniguns ablaze; the poor boy was turned into a fine red mist.

Before anyone even knew what had happened, the ambush party was whittled down to three. Tamaki and the two others, a boy and girl of the same age as himself, stood back-to-back in a close circle on the street, having been thrown down when the Glasgow's fire crumbled the building they had stood on. They raised their handguns, sweeping them across to try desperately and warn off the approaching soldiers, but it was clearly over.

"_**Drop the weapons or die where you stand!" **_the chopper's gunner called over a loudspeaker, the craft's guns spinning in preparation to fire.

Tamaki exchanged fearful glances with his other two comrades, and after a long moment, they set their guns down and raised their hands in surrender.

Immediately, the soldiers closed in, the guerillas were forced to the crumbled pavement before being knocked out by a rifle butt to the back of the head.

**-X-X-X-**

In the ruins of an adjacent building, Naoto and Ohgi, both armed with assault rifles and plentiful ammunition, watched as Tamaki and the other two survivors were taken into custody. "Dammit, we're too late…" Naoto cursed, tossing his rifle down in frustration. "How the hell are we gonna get him now?"

Ohgi sighed and shook his head, "We'll have to wait and see what they do with him. If Touji-sama was right, the Britannians will be doing something big and public to make an example of them. For now, all we can do is fall back and consolidate our resources." He turned and signaled to the assembly of a dozen of their friends, who sighed and groaned in disappointment and lowered their weapons. "Alright, guys, let's get back and secure the complex."

"_Roger…"_

**-X-X-X-**

Jin dodged through the back alleys of western Chiyoda, having been brought there by his incessant, restless meandering. He was carrying his M24 and his P9 (for no real reason other than personal security and a random whim), and was headed towards Kokyo Higashi Gyoen, and the Tokyo Imperial Palace.

The Japanese governing system may have been converted to a representative democracy, but it didn't mean that the old imperial symbols would simply disappear. At least, not without the assistance of several hundred thousand tons of Britannian bombs. After the first waves of the invasion, General Darlton had personally come ashore and supervised the destruction of two-thirds of the Imperial Palace, leaving only the main hall and the East Gardens intact. After this was completed, the general ordered a massive Britannian flag to be unfurled over the largest tower of the hall, as well have all Japanese flags in the area replaced with the Britannian flag.

It was the ultimate slap in the face to Japan's culture, and the secondary administration that had been established in Kyoto took it as a direct insult to the Six Families and the Imperial line. The politicians had called for a bloody siege of Tokyo by remnant Japanese forces, who had simply quirked their brows and replied, "Do you want to try it?"

So to sum it up, there wasn't much to be done about it now. The surviving Diet members had fled to the Chinese Federation, and the Six Families had surrendered and become the probationary National Advisory Council. The Imperial Family, on the other hand… Well, there was a rather elaborate public execution planned for them once construction of the Britannian settlement began.

Jin was snapped from his reverie as he reached the western edge of Kyoko Higashi; the ruins of the Three Sanctuaries Palace and the Imperial Household Agency could be seen in the distance, while the grand palace was obscured by clouds. Britannian helicopter could be seen patrolling the surrounding airspace, and a flight of fighter jets might pass over once in a while.

He ducked back into the alley and behind a crushed dumpster as an M2 Bradley IFV rumbled by, its 30mm autocannon swiveling constantly in anticipation of a target. A four-man infantry patrol followed closely behind, also scanning for stragglers.

'_Oddly enough, I'm not looking for a fight today,'_ Jin mentally restrained himself, _'Picking one or two of them off for their gear would drop half of that garrison over there right on my head.'_ The gear that they had already collected was mostly being used by their group, so another trip would be necessary before sales could be made. On top of that, it would be better to wait for the Britannian pound-sterling to go into local circulation, since constantly walking up to the provisional government offices for currency exchanges would get suspicious after the first time or two. _'I should probably go get registered for citizenship as well…'_ he added as more of an afterthought.

Despite the vehement opposition of the rest of his friends, Jin saw that proper registry couldn't really do any harm, short of the Britannians injecting some sort of tracking chip. So long as he and the others continued operating with all precautions taken, there was really nothing to be worried about. If anything, it would help them go about business as usual with less potential hassle.

Of course, Tamaki was going to be marked with a massive strike to his record if he was caught – it was inevitable, simply due to his nature.

Jin stiffened as he felt something vibrating in his pocket, but relaxed when he recognized his phone. _'Simply_ thinking_ of that devil, and he will undoubtedly seek to trouble you in return,'_ he sighed to himself, flipping open his cell.

**Tamaki was caught along with two others – ten more dead – we need you back here  
From: Ohgi**

"See? Totally called it," Jin groaned, texting back,

**How is this my problem?**

Ohgi's reply was a rather clipped, and obviously terse:

**He's your friend.**

Jin sighed heavily, and shoved the phone deep into the pocket of his fatigues. In truth, he felt very little personal responsibility for the idiot; but clearly the others thought otherwise. And if Ohgi was insisting so vehemently, then Jin had little doubt that his grandfather was behind it somehow. _'Troublesome old man…'_

Grunting slightly, Jin adjusted the strap of the rifle across his back, checked his pistol, and started back to Shinjuku.

**-X-X-X-**

Jin ended up barging into the apartment, soaking wet after the rain had started up again. "Alright, where's the idiot? Need to get this over with so I can go and screw with the bastards over at the palace."

The previously solemn assembly in the apartment looked up from the TV, fixing Jin with hard stares that made him a bit nervous. "… What?" he barked gruffly.

Sugiyama and Yoshida stepped aside to make room, and he stepped up to watch as the report played over again.

"… _**And in other news, a small band of insurgents was taken into custody today inside the boundaries of the Tokyo Concession,"**_the BBC correspondent announced, _**"Eighteen-year-old Shinichiro Tamaki, along with two of his accomplices, Ichiro Matsutake and Aiko Hijima, were captured at the end of a failed ambush on a Britannian Army patrol through the Shinjuku Ghetto. Approximately a dozen other insurgents have been reported dead by the military from the same incident, as well as eight Britannian servicemen. The trio, along with thirty other Eleven terrorists, are scheduled for public execution by General Andreas Darlton himself, in two days in the courtyard of the remains of the Imperial Palace."**_

"_**These rabble-rousers will be made examples of to the rest of the rebellious Eleven population," **_a picture of Darlton appeared with a recording of his voice playing,_** "There is no Japan anymore. You are all inhabitants of Area 11, an established colony of the Holy Britannian Empire. And Britannia will not bow to the whims and mindless murdering of terrorists." **_

Ohgi and Naoto sat on either side of Touji, all three appearing to be in deep thought. "Security is obviously going to be intense with the garrison stationed in that area," Ohgi muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

"We have a Knightmare, a Humvee, nearly two-dozen assault weapons, and a machine gun," Naoto added.

"Not to mention about three-dozen ready and able-bodied Japanese with no training whatsoever."

"So basically, this does not look good," Naoto sighed in exasperation, "Why the hell did that idiot have to go and get himself caught?" He groaned and slumped back in his seat, running a hand through his crimson hair.

"Who says we have to bail him out for his stupidity?" Jin interjected coldly, "I already said that I wouldn't be pulling his ass out of the fire, and I meant it. It's a waste of resources to go out and get ourselves killed for a guy who's already wasted the lives of a dozen of our friends." A few others in the room were nodding along slowly, and the few low murmurings of abandonment were steadily growing in volume.

_THUNK!_

The young Japanese men and women in the area ceased all activity, and looked to the source of the sound. Touji had slammed his cane down at his feet, and was currently moving to his feet.

"This is… Exactly what the Britannians want us to do," the elderly man wheezed, "They're sowing dissent throughout the population, starting with the elements of resistance."

Jin quirked a brow, and voiced the question on everyone's mind, "What are you getting at, ojii-san?"

"Darlton is trying to make the ordinary Japanese people lose _faith_ in the rebels of their number," Touji elaborated further, hobbling slowly over to rest beside the TV. "It all starts with people like Tamaki: easily taunted and aggravated, and thereby blindly aggressive. These types of people are weeded out immediately, and thereafter used as martyrs to draw out the thinkers and cautious ones.

"What we are seeing here is a test, in which remainder must choose which to sacrifice – nothing, in exchange for the lives of our friends and the faith of our race; or ourselves, in order to save our friends at the cost of our own lives. The former saves resources, but loses the support of the people, while the latter loses resources and lives, but secures the people's faith in us."

Ohgi pondered this for a long while before slowly responding, "… So you're saying that if we save Tamaki and the others, then we'll be letting the people know that we're looking out for our own, and they'll be more confident in putting their faith in us in the future; but if we leave them, then we'll be saving our own lives, but the public will see us as selfish and cowardly."

Touji smiled thinly and nodded.

Naoto exhaled and looked around at his friends, a grim determination set in his steely blue eyes. "Well, we know what we have to do."

One by one, the group nodded in assent, until everyone was watching Jin for his answer. He stood against the doorway, eyes closed, arms folded.

After about a minute, he heaved a great sigh, and opened his eyes with a light smirk, "Well, I can't just let you guys go out and waste all of our hard-earned equipment now, can I?'

The others let out a great cheer; until Ohgi and Naoto settled everyone back in for the planning phase.

**-X-X-X-**

About halfway through the planning, Jin found himself wandering back outside. The rain had finally let up, and darkness had fallen. Smoke still billowed into the sky from a few spots in the distance, but it was an otherwise calm, starry night.

He went outside and checked over his truck, which he hadn't touched for the past three days or so. Everything was intact; at the start of the week, he had added a toolbox to the bed, which was currently filled with emergency supplies piled on top of miscellaneous stolen military equipment. The chest was built with a professional-grade lock, which Jin had the only two keys to, so he wasn't terribly concerned about any break-ins.

"So then… What is your plan, _magomusuko_?" Touji's soft voice came from behind him. Jin turned to face his grandfather; he was startled to find the man looking rather frail… Or more so than usual, anyways.

"What do you mean, ojii?" Jin replied confusedly, "I'm going along with them; there's not much else to it."

"Not about the rescue, boy," Touji chuckled, "I mean about this whole occupation business. You're but one man surrounded by a few dozen friends and hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers; so then, Jin Nakata, what will you do? Will you fight, will you run, or will you surrender…?"

His grandfather knew how to ask those tough questions that lingered in Jin's mind; he honestly didn't know. "I-I'm not sure…" Jin admitted hesitantly, "I mean, what is there to do? Resistance at this point is futile, running is cowardice, surrender is cowardice… There is no _winning_ here."

Touji shook his head with an amused chuckle, and settled on a flat slab of displaced concrete with a soft groan. "Sometimes, my boy, life isn't all about _winning_… Sometimes, all you have to do is play the game through, and new paths will open up to you." The elderly man gave Jin a few moments for the statement to settle, "So then, I ask again – what will you do? What will your goals be for this life? Make money? Find a girl? Be a hero?"

He shifted slightly, bringing one leg up to rest on the other, and leaning on his cane, "I'm not going to be around to offer guidance forever, Jin," he said softly, "I need to join my wife soon."

Jin winced slightly in remorse. His grandmother, Saori Nakata, had passed away from a stress-related illness literally hours prior to the Britannian invasion. There had been little time to do anything except hold a rushed service in a small cemetery outside the urban zone before they were forced to take shelter in Shinjuku. Everyone had stopped to mourn once in a while since then, but such time was proving to be a commodity as of late. "We all miss obaa-san, ojii, but no one here wants to see you go…"

Touji smiled sadly. "I'm a relic of a bygone era, my boy," he chuckled melancholically, "You and your friends up there are next to take charge. And besides that, my words are hardly infallible."

"That might be, but you're still the voice of wisdom and reason to all of us," Jin insisted heatedly. "We couldn't make it without you."

"Now that's not true, and you damn well know it, boy," Touji's wrinkled visage was suddenly grave, and he moved to his feet without so much as a groan or a twitch. "You have a solid head on your shoulders, Jin – my boy Toshiro, my little girl Tsunami, and I myself made sure of that. The reason why you currently believe in such an outlandish notion is that you and everyone else have become dependent on third-party instruction. What you, Ohgi, and Naoto need to learn is that one of you needs to take charge up there; true, all three of you are generally looked up to for direction by the others, but each of you then turn to each other or to me for a final nod. Sometimes, decisions simply come down to personal instinct, common sense, and proper planning – you don't always need the approval of your peers, since there are some things that simply have to be done.

"Now don't get me wrong, what you do now is a fine and effective process that is generally the correct one. Just take what I've said to heart, and one day, you'll find yourselves in one of those situations." With this, Touji spun on his heel and walked back into the apartments, standing tall and proud - a glimpse of the distinguished military officer that he once was.

Jin watched his grandfather go and heaved a sigh, hopping into the bed of his truck and settling on the toolbox, leaning back on the roof of the cab and staring at the starry night sky. "What _will_ I do?" he asked himself aloud, resting his head on his folded hands.

"I'm no coward… but then, nor am I a vehement fighter. It's my country, but it's… It's just land; is it truly worth losing my life over?"

He groaned softly and shifted, leaning back on his elbows, "The Britannians won't just up and leave anytime soon… So what will I do? Am I just gonna roll over and play dead or docile, like most of the people? Am I going to pick up a gun and spend the rest of my days just waiting, watching for a Britannian flag and waiting for a faceless soldier to kill?"

He gave one last sigh, and thumped his fist against the cab. "I should think on this… We have awhile yet." He jumped out of the truck, and walked back into the building.

"First, we've gotta save an idiot before he gets his head blown off."

**-X-X-X-**

Resting in an armchair in what used to be his and his wife's apartment, Touji retrieved a phone from the side table, and pressed speed dial.

"_Konbanwa_, Katase-kun; this is Touji Nakata."

"_Nakata-sama? It's an honor. What can I do for you?"_

"You see, it's about my grandson and a few of his friends…"

**End Chapter 3**

**End Note: Tamaki's the universal scapegoat for the Code Geass series. I don't like sticking to that mold, but it was necessary for early progression.**

**Yes, there is a lot of cliché emotional turmoil for Jin in here. Again, necessary evils.**

… **Wow, short rant this time around.**

**Stay frosty.**

**-KFR**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 – **_**Two Hours In Tokyo**_

The day of the execution arrived quickly; a bit too quickly, for all parties.

On Darlton's end, simply finding a suitably defensible location for the event was a chore and a half, given that in the end, the area that they occupied was still militarily considered a hostile country. In the end, the consensus reached by the general and his advisers landed them in the courtyard of the Tokyo Imperial Palace.

To their north and west sat Kokyo Higashi Gyoen, the once-beautiful emerald grasses and gardens now scorched and cratered, stretching out for several thousand meters like a classic No Man's Land. This particular avenue of approached was thoroughly covered by a hastily-prepared minefield, courtesy of Andreas's personal engineering detachment, that stretched from the gardens' south-central and straight north to the opposite artificial canal, with not a single gap in between. Concertina wire was strung in rows across the stretch in alternating patterns, and two hundred meters from the palace, several pre-fab guard towers had been erected, complete with searchlights, machine guns, and thermal-scope-armed guardsmen.

To the south and east lay stretches of the same artificial canal that surrounded the entire garden and palace area; and beyond that sat the rest of the government district, as well as a part of the commercial district. Little Birds and Blackhawks flew regular patrol patterns over this part of the city; and Glasgows and Humvees, as well as the occasional Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and Abrams main battle tank, formed blockades and buzzed up and down almost every street.

In short, Darlton had over a third of his Eighth Infantry Division in on the deal. While his immediate theater supervisors were less than thrilled with his expenditure of resources, the Major General himself saw it as a necessary evil, especially considering that his tier commanders worked best in concert, to balance each other out. The relatively even mix of nobility, scholars, and gifted commoners served quite well in accomplishing that, keeping the former from making brash, life-wasting decisions, and the latter from sitting back on their laurels indecisively.

For the moment, the middle-aged general sat at his desk in the palace itself – the office having formerly belonged to an official of some sort who had been executed – and was shuffling through the previous day's field reports. A knock came on the excessively opulent double doors, and Darlton buzzed the newcomer through.

"Sir," a male officer entered, a pair of double gold bars on his collar denoting his rank. "Captain Allen Hamilton, Sixth Aerial Scouting Wing, Fourth Battalion: reporting as ordered, General."

"Take a seat, Captain Hamilton, I'll be with you in a moment," Darlton gestured to the pair of plush armchairs sitting in front of the desk without looking up. He continued sorting through the reports as Hamilton complied; though unbeknownst to the captain, he was actually observing the man very carefully.

'_Allen Hamilton, age twenty-six; second son of Alicia and Derek Hamilton, a bank teller and a carpenter, respectively,' _Darlton recited in his head. _'Worked through high school and entered Berkley, over half of which was covered by merit-based scholarships, and the rest by his saved wages. Graduated with a Bachelor's in Civil Engineering, and minored in Military History. Showed a high aptitude for squad- and platoon-level tactics in OTS, and earned his gold stripes during the Siege of Ait Benhaddou, Morroco, by successfully recovering three platoons' worth of Britannian soldiers trapped behind enemy lines from a failed push and leading them safely back to a friendly FOB. Calm under pressure, polite, respectful, and a very modest and competent individual overall.' _The assessment was confirmed as the young captain sat wordlessly and comfortably at attention – God only knows how, that position was damned uncomfortable for long stretches of time – while waiting to be addressed.

After another five minutes of relatively comfortable silence, Darlton finally looked up from his papers, blinking away the spots from his eyes caused by the sudden shift of attention. "Captain, I'd like to start off by commending you on your exemplary record for your relatively short period of service. Your ingenuity following the disaster at Ait Bendahhou saved over a hundred Britannian lives, all while taking only three friendly casualties, and dealing none to the various potentially hostile civilian populations that you were forced to bypass."

"Thank you, sir," Allen replied with a weary smile as he recalled the messy affair, "But I find it unnecessary to be commended for simply doing my job."

"And if every officer in this army could share that mindset, we'd be unstoppable," Darlton grunted, only half in jest. "In any case, Allen – you don't mind if I call you Allen, do you?" At the man's gesture of acquiescence, he continued, "I have a task that I feel is best placed with you and your chopper wing." Allen remained silent, which Andreas took as his sign to elaborate. He meshed his fingers together in front of his face and frowned slightly.

"The Japanese resistance leader seems to have a lot more resources available to him than we'd first anticipated. We've been receiving reports of machine gun-armed pickup trucks and cars circulating throughout the lightly-covered commercial and residential districts, as well as a homemade gun truck or two – these rebels are gearing up, _fast _and _hard_. Now, normally this wouldn't be a problem; obviously under normal circumstances, some gun-toting civvies in hatchbacks and beaters don't exactly stack up against Humvees and tanks."

Andreas sighed deeply and fished a cigar out of a drawer, offering one to Allen, who politely declined with a wave of his hand. "Unfortunately, these are far less than normal circumstances, and their leader seems to be a damned crafty individual. I've gone over the reports from the first attack on our patrols, and upon examining the supply records further, I've discovered that a lot of the dead troops' weaponry and gear was unaccounted for by the investigation team, alongside two Humvees and a Glasgow."

"A _Glasgow_, sir?" Allen interjected incredulously.

"Yes, the pilot was a minor noble upstart; probably let his pride get the best of him and got shot out of the cockpit or something. In any case, these resources in insurgent hands represent a serious threat; even more so with a capable and confident strategist and tactician."

"And where are my wing and I brought into this, sir?"

"Our largest problem is that, due to the recent influx of press at this event, we can't safely call in large-scale air support without fear of media backlash that would eventually reach the homeland. The Blackhawks and Apaches are still capable of making gun runs, but their tracking capabilities are limited when faced with this type of environment, coupled with fast-moving targets such as the insurgents' Technicals. So, I'm giving the go-ahead for you to have half of your wing outfitted for full CAS capabilities. I want you to put your best pilots into the CAS birds, and they will be tasked with tracking down and eliminating high-mobility targets."

"I understand, sir; we won't let you down." The captain nodded resolutely – more to himself than anything – and snapped to his feet, offering a sharp salute. Darlton stood slowly and returned the gesture.

"Dismissed; get your first flight in the air in twenty."

"Yes sir." Allen executed a textbook about-face and walked out.

Darlton turned his chair and stared out the window at the residential district to the north; as he watched, a pillar of smoke rose into the air off in the distance, followed closely by the sound and shockwave from the original explosion. A Blackhawk moved in to investigate, only to be peppered by small-arms fire from the ground, and then blasted from the sky by an RPG. An Apache followed shortly after, raining a hail of autocannon rounds down into the streets.

He watched the subsequent firestorm with a grave visage, and a Thousand-Yard Stare as he was lost in his memories. _'We may've bitten off more than we can chew here…' _

**-X-X-X-**

"Dammit, Minami! You cut the machine gun mount six centimeters too short on this one!" Naoto barked over to his friend, who was standing by with a cutting torch and a welding mask.

"Well sorry! Sugiyama's the master welder, why not get him over here?!"

"Because we need him to cut the custom armor plating for the gun trucks!" the half-breed teenager groaned, running a hand over the side of his face. "Weld the rods back together and then cut it right!"

"That won't work! The rod's integrity has been compromised by the first cut!"

"Here," Jin cut in before the shouting match could escalate, slipping on a pair of thick gloves and snatching the mask off of Minami's head. He took the torch and approached the pickup, jumping into the back and negotiating the hose into a safe spot for him to work on the two centimeter-thick metal tube that served as an impromptu machine gun pintle mount. "Gimme the mounting piece," he called over to one of the other crewmembers, who jogged over carrying the fabricated steel gun housing. The man held the piece in place while Jin cut off a six-centimeter piece of tubing, and then grabbed a scrap piece of steel plating, cutting it into a four-by-four square. The square was welded onto the top of the already-present tube, and then the shorter piece was added on top of the square, culminating in the final attachment of the pintle mount.

Jin took the proffered M2 machine gun and slid it seamlessly into the mount, bolting it into place without a problem. "Voila," he gestured to the gun with a grandiose wave of his hands, "Improvisation at its finest."

"Seriously man how the hell do you do all this shit?" Han queried as he walked up, his shoulder wrapped in bandages from his close encounter of the Knightmare kind.

"Books, video games, high school, and my uncle," Jin replied noncommittally. "Seriously, most of the stuff I do isn't really that hard to pull off with proper research and a bit of creativity."

"Yeah, well, we don't exactly have internet access anymore," Naoto deadpanned.

"And that is why I hold the distinct advantage in that category for having done it beforehand," Jin smirked. "Not much to be done about it." He removed the M2 from the mount and then handed it to the crewman, who brought it back to the Humvee. "In any case, we still need to go over how we're going to do this."

"It's a pretty simply job by the looks of it," Han shrugged. "Aoi and Sugiyama lead eight of our Technicals and gun trucks, accompanied by two vans of assorted fighters, in a feint against the bridge on the east side of the palace. They make it as far as they can before they start taking substantial losses, then retreat and draw the Britannian security forces out to overextension. Meanwhile, the main force of the rest of us closes in on foot after they've gone out; we hit the place, bag everybody, and book it back to Shinjuku in armored vans and cars."

"No plan survives contact with the enemy, Han," Jin replied wryly. "For one, we've failed to account for Britannian air support; while their jets probably won't be allowed to hit us thanks to the close proximity of the press, they _do _still have gunships that could seriously ruin our day."

"Which is why we've tracked down a bunch of RPGs and one heat-seeking Stinger," Minami offered. "Sugiyama came back with them last night; said he called in a favor from his cousin across town."

"That's my guy," Jin grinned in satisfaction. "What about heavy armor and Knightmares?"

"Mines," Han answered simply. "We found a fuck-ton of anti-armor mines that were left behind by an SDF engineering battalion north of Shinjuku. I've got a team going in half an hour beforehand and sapping the projected avenues of approach."

"Good man. Snipers?" The older man hefted Jin's M24.

"Countersnipers – that's gonna be my department."

"Han, I could kiss you right now."

"If you were a voluptuous female, I would take you up on that. Given that you are not, however; stick to watching my six, boss man."

"Deal." Jin vaulted over the roof of the truck, slid down the hood, and landed squarely in front. "How's our time table looking, Inoue?" he called out the blue-haired woman, who sat across the area at a desk with a stolen military laptop.

"Execution is scheduled for high noon, Jin!" Inoue replied, typing away furiously, "We've got five hours until show time."

"What're you doing over there, anyway?" Naoto asked.

"We snagged some GPS units from a rental agency on the edge of the district; I'm trying to upload the assault routes into each one and then upgrade their processing capabilities to allow them to adapt to obstacles along the way."

"You can do that?" Jin asked incredulously, striding over to Inoue's space and glancing over her shoulder. Sure enough, there were nearly a dozen screens open, all of them streaming gibberish code that only the woman herself seemed to understand, as her eyes darted along, and her fingers danced feverishly. Ten seconds later, the stream stopped, and each screen showed a hundred percent completion. "Well fuck me…" he muttered quietly in astonishment.

"If you can find me an easier way to do this, I might take you up on that," the blunette replied huskily, panting and sweating lightly; honestly, Jin found it more than a little bit attractive.

"Guess I'm gonna have to learn coding, then…"

"Jin's new quest to get into Inoue's pants aside," Naoto called out loudly, "Let's get geared up and go over final instructions, people!"

Across the – formerly – abandoned garage that the fighters occupied, group leaders shot back calls of affirmation. Down on the floor, teams of mechanics and welders huddled around pickups, putting down metal plates and pintle mounts in the beds of the trucks for machine guns. Up on the catwalks, logistics people scrambled about with weapons, ammunition, and materials. Off to the sides of the main floor, Inoue had assembled a small computer team to put the entire plan down electronically on stolen (and thoroughly drive-wiped) military computers.

From above, several of the group leaders skipped ladders and vaulted over the catwalk railings, landing and rolling smoothly to their feet.

"Was parkour like, the big thing around here before all of this?" Han glanced at Jin, who nodded.

"We used to have freerunning competitions across Shinjuku."

"Anyway," Naoto cleared his throat to get everyone's attention, "To make sure we're all on the same page, all team leaders will now repeat back their objectives and plans of execution. Insertion team! You're up first."

Sugiyama and Aoi stepped forward, along with the Technical and van drivers. "First convoy moves out at 1115 hours, sharp. Transit time to the staging grounds is fifteen minutes – no exceptions. Once there, we'll await a signal from Naoto, Jin, or Han, and we'll go streaming down the east highway, approaching the bridge from the north. We'll get to the bridge and attempt to cross until we start to take losses, at which point we'll begin a retrograde movement to the east, and then back to the north."

"Good. Sappers and tank destroyers!"

"Sapper Taskforce Blue moves out at 1045 hours, reaching the staging grounds one click east of the highway at 1100 sharp. Starting at the mall area and radiating out to the south and west, two-man sapper teams will lace the cratered roads with anti-vehicle mines, which will be discreetly marked by blue spray-painted crosses to the immediate _right _of the mine locations – drivers, do _not _forget that direction if you value your lives. Once completed, sappers will scatter to the east and take a roundabout route back to the garage."

"TD Taskforce Green moves at 1100 and sets up a click and a half northwest of the execution grounds, on top of the parking garage next to the mall. We break off in pairs and freerun to positions across the rooftops east of the gardens, and open up on Britannian armor as the first convoy moves in; tanks and IFVs take priority, as well as Glasgows if we're sure we can hit them. Once we're out of ammo, we'll abandon our positions and scatter to the east. Launchers must be saved at all costs for a later date."

"Excellent! Sharpshooters, you're up!" Han stepped up, his rifle resting on his shoulder.

"Sniper teams scatter from the garages at 1030 and cross the rooftops to pre-selected shooting positions; all shooters should be in place by 1100. The marksmen furthest from the target area will open up on Britannian perimeter troops at 1125 to pave the way for the convoy – machine gun and anti-armor teams are priority targets. If the Brits bring their own snipers into the mix, our shooters will relocate to auxiliary positions and take up counter-sniper operations. Everyone abandons their positions once ground-level operations are concluded and get back to the garages in any way they can, within reason."

Jin grinned in satisfaction and grabbed a folding metal chair from Inoue's desk, slamming it down on the cement floor and plopping down backwards, his arms resting on the back. "Alright, it sounds like everything is in order."

Everyone else looked at the young Nakata curiously. "But Jin…" Naoto spoke up, "You still haven't told any of us about the main force's part of the plan."

Jin didn't reply, instead allowing his grin to widen.

**-X- 11:20 AM -X-**

Allen's MH-6 Little Bird chopper circled the palace/execution grounds in a broad orbit, his copilot/gunner constantly scanning the streets and buildings to the north, east, and south. Showtime was forty minutes out; the prisoners had just been shuttled to the site, and were now waiting with two platoons of security inside the palace's main hall. If the other rebels were going to do anything, now was the time.

"_I've got movement on the north end of the freeway," _the gunner reported over their headset connection.

"Hamilton to base, Hamilton to base – we've got potential contact, north end of the freeway," Allen relayed quickly over the radio.

"_**Acknowledged, Captain. We're dispatching a roadblock immediately." **_Down below, a pair of M1A3 Abrams MBTs rolled out and blocked up the freeway, with an M2 Bradley IFV rolling up between then, autocannon at the ready.

But, just as the first few UID vehicles of the convoy approached, a triplet of explosive charges detonated directly beneath the roadblock, and all three of the armored vehicles fell with the freeway. From the building next door, a group of burly insurgents tossed several steel planks down onto the road with great effort, whereupon more of them spidered up onto the freeway and placed them over the gap. Two of them were downed by reactionary fire from the Britannian positions, but the job was done.

The machine gun that had downed the insurgents – along with several other positions – suddenly fell in quick succession. _**"All units be advised, we have enemy sharpshooters in the buildings. We cannot locate the shooters from command; all friendly units are advised to stay in cov-" **_The radio suddenly fell silent, and Allen glanced down; one of the windows of the pre-fab radio direction tower had been shot out, presumably along with the radiomen themselves.

"_**All units should also be advised; the RDC has been compromised. All radio traffic is being redirected through General Darlton's mobile C2 suite, operating on frequency one-eight-one-point-six megahertz…"**_

"_Bring us in for a pass on that convoy, Cap!" _his gunner called out, the Little Bird's miniguns already spinning up.

"Roger that, El-Tee," Allen replied, swinging the chopper around and lining up perpendicular to the freeway. But before the lieutenant beside him could get a shot off, the windows of the building in front of them lit up with muzzle flashes, and the windscreen was suddenly full of holes. Not only that, but Allen's _gunner _was suddenly full of holes, and his own leg was spontaneously numbed. He glanced down, and saw a splash of blood across the instrument panel in front of his leg, where a bullet had passed through his calf. "_SHIT! _All aircraft be advised, do _not _attempt gun runs on the convoy – repeat, do _not _line up for runs - there are more insurgents in the buildings! This is Hamilton, I am hit and my gunner is dead; I'm returning to the pads for treatment and repair."

"_**Viper Six-Two, Viper Six-Three, clear the pads; Cap's coming down, Priority One." **_Over the temporary helipads erected on the east side of the palace grounds, a pair of Little Birds from Allen's chopper wing hastily took off, allowing the wounded – and slightly dizzy – Captain to come in for a bumpy landing. He touched down without letting off of his throttle as much as necessary, and the chopper ended up bouncing twice roughly, before skidding to a precarious stop at the edge of the elevated pre-fab pad.

"MEDIC!"

"WE'RE ALREADY HERE, YOU IDIOT! NOW _GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY!_" A triplet of combat medics rushed onto the pad as several infantrymen moved to the ground below and held the chopper stable manually.

One of the meds, a bulky young man with his sleeves rolled up and a red cross-emblazoned white bandana tied around his bicep, practically ripped off the pilot's side door and started checking Hamilton. The man's first observation was the large chunk missing from the Captain's left calf. "Somebody get a fucking stretcher over here, NOW!" the medic bellowed, reaching in and unbuckling Hamilton from his crash webbing, lifting him with ease and surprising care. His two companions came up behind him with a stretcher held between them, and accepted the wounded pilot before jogging off swiftly.

**-X-X-X-**

From his command station within a circle of IFVs, Darlton shook his head in shock and mild revulsion. The entire process, from the hit to the hand-off, had taken barely two minutes.

"It's always the young, bright ones…" the division's Command Sergeant Major shook his head sadly. "They go out there full of spirit, and come back full of holes."

"Cut all that depressing crap, Sarge-Major," a First Sergeant chastised, apparently having been watching the Major General's shift in expressions, "You're downing the General." The Sergeant Major finally glanced over and jumped a bit.

"My apologies, sir-" the senior NCO started quickly, only to be cut off as the General raised a hand.

"It's fine, Sergeant Major," Darlton replied quietly, "A dose of reality, that's all." Before any of the commanders could carry on further, their radios crackled in unison.

"_**All perimeter units be advised: the enemy has broken through Phase Line Echo! Repeat, Phase Line Echo has been breached! All available units regroup on Phase Lines Delta and Charlie!" **_

"Dammit! How could they take the bridgehead so quickly?!" the Sergeant Major demanded in a frenzy.

"What happened to the Knightmare detachment?! They should have been standing by at Echo!" the First Sergeant added with equal fervor.

"The pilots are pinned down at the motor pool by snipers," one of the communications team reported evenly as his hands raced across the keyboard in front of him, "And the bridgehead was taken out by more sniper fire, as well as several scattered RPG teams."

"We need to remain calm, gentlemen," the communications XO declared sternly. "The enemy is counting on this confusion to carry out their objectives. We need to collect ourselves, reorganize the defense, and re-establish the chain of command in the field."

"Ex-Oh has got the right idea," the First Sergeant agreed. The man then donned a Kevlar vest and web gear, grabbed a rifle from one of the vehicles, and slipped out of the command ring, rushing headlong into the fight.

"Where is that crazy bastard going?!" an officer shouted incredulously

"He's going to do what none of the rest of us has the guts to do," Darlton replied calmly, watching as the First Sergeant reached Charlie and began rallying the troops, barking orders to whole way.

Seconds later, the man's lapels glinted, and the First Sergeant went down with a bloody chunk missing from his shoulder. Two more enlisted men went down around him, and another of them made the thousand-yard sprint for the command vehicles.

The young corporal managed to arrive intact – if one were to disregard the clearly bloodied bandages wrapped around his midsection – and collapsed in a heaving, sweating heap.

"Those snipers are tearing us apart, sir!" the disheveled man gasped up to the general, "Without air support, there's no way to get rid of them! They seem to go down, and then the bastards pop right back up somewhere else not a minute later!"

"They planned this," one of the officers grumbled, "They know that we can't strike at civilian structures with the press around."

"Then put the damned press in the entrance hall or something! Have them interview the damned prisoners for all I care, but we need that air support!" the Sergeant Major barked resolutely. He turned to the runner and glanced at the chevrons on the young man's shoulders. "Corporal," the NCO spoke up, kneeling beside the exhausted man and helping him into a sitting position, "I need you to do one more thing for me, son – can you make it back to the front?"

"Y-yes, Sergeant Major," the corporal panted, "I can make it, I swear!"

"Good. I want you to get back up there, find the nearest officer or senior NCO that actually looks like they give a damn that their men are getting killed, and tell them to escort the press back into the building as quickly as possible- stay with me son," the Sergeant Major slapped the young man's cheek lightly as he seemed to drift in and out of consciousness; the corporal snapped up, trying desperately to comply. "After that, tell them to call in gun runs from the air support; we'll be granting clearance for it shortly. When all of that's done, get inside to the medical wing; you've earned it, my boy. Repeat your orders back to me."

"G-get back to the front, find an officer or NCO that gives a damn, get the press inside, call down the thunder, get to the medical bay," the corporal reiterated dutifully, trying to pull himself to his feet. The Sergeant Major nodded in satisfaction and helped him up; the young man steadied himself on the side of the IFV, took a few deep breaths, and then was off at a limping sprint.

Darlton watched the half-conscious corporal's progress in astonishment alongside the rest of the gathered command staff. The wounded man stumbled several times – moves which looked to have saved his life on multiple occasions – and miraculously managed to cross the veritable No Man's Land that the palace lawns had become. There, the red-faced and sweating soldier flagged down a Sergeant First Class and relayed the instructions, which the sergeant in turn passed to a First Lieutenant who was directing the organized chaos. It was at this point that the corporal collapsed and fell unconscious; but he had done his job well, and the SFC packed the young man in a fireman's carry to the medical bay.

"Such perseverance and dedication…" one of the officers muttered in disbelief. "Are all of our enlisted really like that?"

"Unfortunately no, given that a number of members of the command staff see fit to view their subordinates as disposable," the Sergeant Major shot back with more than a bit of barely-disguised vindictive pleasure. "I recognize him from Captain Anderson's Alpha Company; Anderson takes good care of his kids, it would seem."

"Anderson is now up for a pay raise and promotion, along with the rest of his company," Darlton declared in all seriousness. "Let that be a lesson to the rest of you: while Officer's School and your blue-blooded daddies may not speak of it; this is _my _division, and we are a meritocracy. You're not getting jack-shit from me until you've shown that you deserve it. Your subordinates are key to that particular bit of show-and-tell as well."

"We might want to save the policy recitation for later, sir!" the communications XO declared, "The insurgents just lobbed a bunch of Molotov Cocktails onto the southeast lawn and set it ablaze!"

The staff peered over the tops of the IFVs, and sure enough, the grounds to their east were engulfed in a rapidly-growing firestorm.

"They're pulling back!" a cry rang out from the front, followed closely by ragged cheers.

"What the hell…?!" the Sergeant Major queried, "That can't be right! We still have the prisoners!"

"I've got it here on screen," a tech declared, scooting aside to show the staff the situation. The link was to the camera of an RQ-7 "Shadow" Tactical UAV, which was orbiting above the immediate zone of engagement at ten thousand feet. "See those six big orange blobs on the street? Those are the insurgents' Technicals," the comms tech explained. "Everything to the west of them is our guys. And as you'll take note, they're currently moving east – they're on the run, gentlemen."

"Well what about the enemy snipers?" Darlton questioned.

"We don't know at this time, sir. This particular model drone's thermal cams aren't a high enough resolution to pick out individual snipers in our current environment without having to drop below Air Command's established "Altitude Safety Net". The gains don't justify the risk of putting one of our only unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles on the line."

"Get in touch with our counter snipers and ask for a status report, then," the general ordered with frustration growing in his voice.

"Yes sir," the tech replied quickly, sliding back into his station and tapping back into the comm channels. "Grizzly Alpha 1-0, this is Grizzly Actual – Big Bear is requesting a SitRep."

"… _**Grizzly Actual, this is Grizzly Bravo 2-1; my team has taken command. Alpha Unit was annihilated in the opening salvo," **_a voice came back, the transmission laden with static. Darlton grimaced and grabbed a spare headset.

"Bravo 2-1, what is your current status?" the general asked sharply.

"_**Big Bear! My apologies sir, things are a bit hectic over here. We're heavily engaged with scout-sniper teams and hidden infantry; they're laying down quite a suppressive hail in the eastern administrative sector. The enemy convoy has already escaped, sir – destroying three Bradleys, two Abrams, and two Glasgows in the process, while only losing one gun truck. They were ready for us, I swear it! The armor crews were reporting losing tracks to mines, for God's sake! What the hell were the patrols doing over here?!" **_

"Apparently sitting around with their heads up their asses, 2-1," Darlton grumbled back. "Consolidate the remainder of your teams around the riverside and establish perimeter overwatch; something about this doesn't sit right with me…"

"_**Affirmative – Bravo 2-1, out."**_

The field fell silent at that moment, and Darlton was content to leave it that way.

It was not to be.

**_BOOM!_**

**_"There's been an explosion! Three of the northeast watch towers have gone down!"_**

**_"Delta Company has come under fire from the edge of the canal!"_**

**_"Reports are coming in from Echo! The main hall has been breached! IT'S THE INSURGENTS!"_**

* * *

**To Be Continued…**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 – **_**Two Hours in Tokyo, Part 2**_

And here we reach the crux of our dear Mister Nakata's brilliant plan.

The man himself sat in the shadows of the service tunnels beneath the Imperial Palace, carbine clutched to his chest, eyes fixed firmly on the stairwell directly to his front. Behind him, eleven of his friends and comrades waited in similar stances, clenching a variety of rifles and submachine guns, and donning several sets of stolen Kevlar vests.

"Jin," Ohgi whispered from behind him, "Shouldn't we already be up there? I mean, we're already past the set timetable…"

"We can't move until Yoshida's group hits the perimeter from the canal," Jin replied smoothly, eyes never leaving the stairs. He allowed himself a second to adjust the red bandana covering the lower half of his face, along with the group's signature crimson headband.

They didn't have much longer to wait after that. A few minutes later, the shockwave of an explosion rocked the tunnel, showering dust down onto the infiltrators; Jin looked back to his companions and nodded, at which point they filed quickly up the stairs, forcing their way through the cellar door at the top.

The impromptu squad emerged in a spacious storage room, which was at the moment filled to the brim with administrative supplies and ventilation system components. The door they had come in from was flat in the floor, and had apparently been so thoroughly coated in dust from disuse that it had gone unnoticed by the Britannian logistics officers. Jin had learned of it from his grandfather, who had served a stint in the palace as a guardsman while in the JSDF.

They stacked up on the door, six on each side, with Jin and Naoto directly beside it; the younger redhead nodded to his friend and current group leader, who jiggled the nob and, discovering it to be unlocked, opened the door a crack. Naoto reached into his appropriated web gear and unhooked a flashbang grenade, ripping out the pin and flicking it through the crack and around the door.

_BANG! _Even through the door, the infiltrators' ears were ringing from the blast, but quickly dismissed the feeling and leaped into action.

"EVEYBODY GET DOWN, _NOW!_" Jin barked as he shouldered his way through the gap, carbine leveled at the stunned Britannians and Japanese prisoners. Most of the noncombatants in the room, as well as the prisoners, quickly complied, while the soldiers desperately attempted to raise their weapons and stop the insurgents - only to be cut down by rebel gunfire before they could blink the stars and white haze from their eyes.

"Secure the prisoners!" Naoto called back to the group as he sprinted to the massive iron doors and, with Jin's assistance, secured them with an equally large steel bar.

The others moved through the ranks of the prisoners, using combat knives and bayonets to cut off the flex cuffs securing their wrists. Heavy iron manacles still bound their ankles and slowed their steps, though, and Inoue and Takahashi broke off from their work to search the downed Britannian guards for a key of some sort. Inoue eventually came up from searching a captain with a remote, which upon manipulation released the restraints.

Once everything was done, the soldiers were restrained, and the media was herded off into another room, Jin called for everyone's attention.

"Alright," he spoke in a stage-whisper in case of straggling soldiers or eavesdropping reporters, "Naoto and his team will guide the prisoners out of here through the service tunnels, while we'll stay behind and guard the entrance on this side. Sugiyama and co. should've already returned and secured the other end, so all that's left is for you guys to run like hell and get there."

"But what about you guys?" Tamaki piped up quietly; he seemed reasonably humbled after his week in captivity, and his attitude was as such rather low-key.

"We'll be a few minutes behind you, collapsing the entrance on this end when we leave, and exiting in a garage just across the canal to rendezvous with the sniper teams and get the heck outta dodge," Jin replied.

It was at that moment that the handful of able-bodied soldiers who had been occupying the Medical Wing emerged armed mostly with sidearms and a carbine or two. They froze up as a dozen rifles were fixed on them, and their guns quickly clattered to the floor as their hands flew into the air.

"We plead injury," one of them quipped dryly. "Just wanted to make sure that no one was gonna come after the patients."

"We have no intention of harming soldiers who are unable to resist or retaliate," Jin replied coolly. "Now go back upstairs, and don't even think of coming down until you feel the explosion down here; or else we _will _have problems."

"Deal." The half-dozen men backpedaled slowly from their dropped weapons, hands still raised in a gesture of submission, until they reached the stairs and ascended.

"Satomi, Kenji – follow them up there and keep a watch on the wing. I'll come up and get you when it's time to go." The two men complied, slinging their weapons over their shoulders and following after the Britannian soldiers. "The rest of you, let's get a move on! We have several hundred decidedly cross Brits standing outside the doors looking for an excuse to blast their way in!"

And so, the organized chaos recommenced in full. The remainder of Jin's team, down to three plus the man himself with Satomi and Kenji guarding the medics and patients upstairs, took up positions around the entrance hall. Naoto took the rest and started ushering the prisoners down into the tunnel, which was actually a fairly swift process; perhaps Britannian captivity wasn't as dramatically painful as whispers indicated.

Jin dismissed himself from the others, heading upstairs to the impromptu Area Eleven Provisional Government had established their administrative headquarters. He bypassed most of the lesser offices, only stopping briefly in some places to retrieve a paper or folder with a particularly curious or noteworthy title. Upon reaching the end of the sprawling office space, he stole away in the office of the Prime Minister – now occupied by General Darlton, who was no doubt seething in rage on the lawn directly below the ornate (and surprisingly bulletproof) picture window.

The desk was fairly orderly, with a sizeable stack of reports sitting in the 'Out' box, leaving only a few pages in the other. Several filing cabinets sat in a row off in one corner, with a single drawer left partially open, meaning that the entire cabinet was unlocked.

Jin took to rapidly leafing through the files, taking financial and urban planning reports when he saw them, as well as military force allocations, supply routes and shipping manifests, etcetera. By the end, he had all but cleaned out the cabinet, and threw all of the rest into a single drawer. He pulled a matchbook from his pocket, the one he normally used for his cigarettes, and struck one alight; he tossed it into the drawer and closed it, leaving a small crack for the fire to remain oxygenated just long enough to burn through everything inside without risking fire damage with to the rest of the facility.

Stuffing his recovered materials into a small duffel bag, which he then secured across his back, the insurgent commander hurried back downstairs, stopping only to retrieve Satomi and Kenji.

Upon entry into the wing, he was surprised and a bit confused to find his two friends sitting and chatting amiably with two Britannian officers and three enlisted men over a hand of poker.

"So this is what qualifies as "guarding" nowadays?" Jin interjected, schooling his expression into a mask of cold indifference. Satomi and Kenji looked over at him nonchalantly.

"What? They're not armed, and they're certainly not going anywhere," Kenji shrugged.

"I thought the whole point of the exercise was fostering some form of amicable communication between the Britannians and the Japanese," Satomi offered in a moment of insight.

Jin could only sigh and massage his forehead. "Just forget it. Come on, we've got to go."

"Alright. Say, you guys aren't gonna rat on us or anything, right?" Kenji addressed the question to the soldiers.

"I'm sorry, what were your names again?" the ranking officer in the room, a Captain by the name of Hamilton, gave a knowing smirk. Kenji and Satomi offered grateful nods and then followed after Jin, hustling down the stairs and back to where the other three were congregated.

"Alright, all objectives have been achieved; let's exfil."

"You sure you never served, Jin? I could almost mistake you for a soldier when you talk like that," one of the others joked.

"I was planning to enlist after a few years of college," Jin confessed freely. "But, that's a story for another time. _MOVE!_"

**-X- 11:52 AM -X-**

Darlton stood back against his command vehicle, which had been moved onto the main avenue due to the change in situation, as well as the substantial loss of material and men from the opening assault. He watched as a pair of Glasgows pounded relentlessly on the twenty centimeter-thick iron doors to no avail; they had apparently been secured strongly from within, if not welded shut.

'_Just how did they get inside in the first place…?' _he pondered, his mind returning to the scenario's greatest quandary. _'They must've acquired military uniforms and infiltrated with a supply shipment or a security detachment… But how did they go undiscovered for so long? Surely our troops would've noticed a handful of Japanese amongst several close-knit companies of Britannians.'_

A Sergeant jogged up to the command station, offering a quick salute which betrayed the man's exhaustion. "Sir, those damned doors won't budge," he reported rather simply. "The Glasgows just don't have enough raw force behind their blows, even if they gather momentum."

"Get over to Communications and tell them to requisition a pair of ACEs from the Ninety-Second Armored," Darlton ordered neutrally, still lost in his ponderings.

"Yes sir."

"In the meantime, fire up that Abrams and clear the driveway! Let's ram this sumbitch down!"

**-X-X-X- **

_**CRASH!**_

The soldiers let out a great cheer as an M9 ACE (Armored Combat Earthmover) blew straight through the front doors on its second ramming run, the heavy bulldozer blade crumpling the iron monoliths in the middle. The vehicle backed out, allowing a company of infantry to enter, weapons raised and sweeping the room for targets.

All they found were several startled reporters and impassive medics waiting by the staircase on the far end of the hall, apparently having been in the middle of an informal interview. "Took your bloody time, didn't you?" the head medic called out. "They left ten minutes ago!"

"And you couldn't be bothered to unblock the doors?!" the CO shot back in agitation.

"The bar was jammed in the slot! There was nothing that a dozen medics and injured soldiers could do about it!"

"Cut the chatter!" the injured First Sergeant barked as he descended the stairs, his arms slung around a pair of NCOs on either side for support. "Brass is on deck – show some damned decorum!"

"Thank you, First Sergeant," Darlton declared loudly as he entered at a sedate pace, his hands clasped behind his back. "Gentlemen! I understand that tensions are high after this… Admittedly humiliating situation. However, despite the current state of affairs, it is _crucial _that we maintain our bearing – for ourselves, and for the cameras."

Everyone was silent. Darlton waited… And waited. He then shot a glance at the First Sergeant, who looked just as annoyed as he was.

"LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN, MAGGOTS!" he thundered, causing every soldier in earshot - which was actually quite far, and with officers included – to instinctively snap to attention. "I WANT TO HEAR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU **SOUND OFF!**"

"**YES, FIRST SER-GEANT!"**The response echoed around the palace grounds and a short ways into the streets.

"WHAT WAS THAT, YOU **PANSIES?! **_**YOU ARE GOING TO ANSWER THE GENERAL, AND YOU ARE GOING TO BE **__**LOUD!**__**" **_

"_**YES, FIRST SER-GEANT!" **_This time, the shout rocketed through the streets for a mile, the dust in the streets displaced lightly as though by a shockwave.

"_**USE. YOUR. FUCKING. **__**DIAPHRAGMS!**__** ANSWER THE GENERAL NOW!"**_

"_**YES SIR!" **_One hundred and sixty-seven voices rang out in perfect unison, reverberating across the landscape and shaking what few windows remained for miles in every direction.

"That's better," the First Sergeant grunted. He turned to Darlton, "They're all yours, General."

"Thank you, First Sergeant," Andreas nodded. "First Squad of Third Platoon - find those damned reporters and get them out of our AO. The rest of you, line up and follow the administrative staff upstairs; we're cleaning this place out as soon as possible. Move everything down here first, and then load it all into Fifth Battalion's Strykers and Bradleys once they arrive. You have your orders! Squad and platoon leaders take command and get it done."

"**YES SIR!"**

**-X-X-X-**

The General knew something was wrong before he even stepped into his office – he could smell the lingering smoke. Darlton quickly drew his USP .45 from his leg holster and stacked up beside the doorway, gesturing for a supervising Lieutenant to do the same. On a silent three-count, the pair burst in, with the lieutenant taking the lead. After a quick sweep of the office and determining that it was in fact clear, Darlton dismissed the other man gratefully with instructions to retrieve the Command Sergeant Major and Captain Hamilton.

Holstering his sidearm, Andreas rush over to the file cabinets; the contents of the open top drawer were burnt to ash, while every other drawer was completely empty.

'_There's no way that a fire of this size could've destroyed every file in all four of these cabinets. But that means…' _He didn't need to finish that thought. The implications were too staggering to require expression. Darlton jogged over and stopped in the doorway.

"I WANT ALL ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS IN THE SITUATION ROOM, **NOW!**"

**-X- 12:37 PM -X-**

Naoto watched with bare confusion as Jin rifled excitedly through the massive pile of file folders that he had dumped out of his bag onto the desk of the warehouse's upstairs office. "Um… Jin? Are you alright?" he inquired hesitantly.

"I'm fuckin' _ecstatic_, kiddo!" Jin replied without looking up. After several more seconds of rifling, he finally snatched up the right folded, and waved it directly in Naoto's face. "Do you have any idea what we have here?!" he asked excitedly.

"No, but I'm guessing you're going to tell me," Naoto replied dryly.

Before Jin could launch into his rant, Han burst in. "You got them?!" he demanded with the same barely-veiled excitement as his friend. At Jin's nod, the larger man burst into joyous laughter, and immediately set into the pile of folders and papers eagerly. "We're gonna be rich, kids! RICH!"

"Can someone please tell me how a bunch of papers are going to help us strike it rich?!" the youngest of the three demanded impatiently.

Jin took a deep breath to collect himself, and guided Naoto over to the table where a series of reports were lined out. "Read the titles, kiddo – what do we have here?" Naoto squinted down at the labels on the taps, and quirked a brow.

"Supply manifests?"

"Exactly. What do we _not _have right now?"

"Well… Food, water, weapons, ammunition… Oh."

"Yes, 'oh'. We search the manifests, figure out which shipment best fits our needs, and then hit it – hard, and fast. Hell, we can even hit another one just to grab some gear for storage and resale! We could be _rich _off of these seemingly insignificant little pieces of paper, kid."

"Not only the supply manifests, but we have troop allocations and military construction projects!" Han added his findings, pulling out a pair of thick manila envelopes. "What I have here in this hand," he raised his right, "Is a list of every Army Corp of Engineers building project in Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto district for the next _two years_. We keep the originals for our own reference, make copies, and barter them off to remnant Japanese forces in return for weapons, supplies, and _cash_. Or, we could ransom them back to Britannian forces – but that's more of a last resort deal, since there's a pretty good chance that they'd just try to screw us instead."

"In my other hand," Han raised his left, "Is a list of every Britannian Army outfit on Honshu. That means we have a fairly accurate count of the current strength of every enemy military unit on the island, down to a squad level. We give this to the central body of Japanese military resistance in the country, and we are _in_. We will have support, supplies, soldiers – anything we want that they can reasonably get us."

"Wow…" Naoto breathed, his eyes already sifting over the rest of the files.

"This is the power of paperwork, kiddo," Jin stated simply, "It can be your best friend, or your biggest, most crippling weakness. The devil is, literally, all in the details."

"Now go get Ohgi and Inoue up here so we can start sorting through all this crap," Han ordered.

"In the meantime, I think I have our first target," Jin said, eyes fixed on the list in his hands. "I'll take a team out while we're all still hyped up; should be a quick jaunt."

"Leave someone downstairs on the radio, and keep a line open at all times!" Han called out as his friend rushed out.

Jin vaulted off of the balcony, landing on the roof of one of the covered gun trucks. "ALRIGHT, LISTEN UP! I NEED TWO TECHNICAL CREWS, TWO TRUCK CREWS, AND FOUR SPARE DRIVERS! I COULD USE A FEW SPARE SNIPERS AND TANK KILLER CREWS, TOO!" He had his volunteers in seconds, totaling up to twenty men. "Alright ladies and gents, gather round.

"We've recently acquired some crucial information on Britannian supply movements, and one of their convoys is moving out in _minutes_. The projected route takes the convoy north of Shinjuku Gyoen – _our _territory. So, long story short: we're gonna set up an ambush point, take out the escorts, and steal the trucks loaded with supplies. Now, Darlton may have already discovered that we possess these reports, but he's not going to have time to assign an escort to this particular group; they're already on the move. This is good, and bad; good, because we'll be facing light resistance, but bad due to the limited timeframe for arrival and setup."

Jin produced an area map, and set it out on the floor in the center of the group; he circled the ambush point. "Drivers, this is our ambush point; now, the unassigned drivers will grab a few of the vans out back to create a roadblock on the spot. Sniper teams will establish positions in the highrises here, and here," he circled the spots, "While rocket teams will set up in the buildings immediately on the street. Gun trucks and technicals will move in on the convoy once they're stopped by the roadblocks by blocking off their escape routes." He wrapped up the map and slipped it into his jacket, "Any questions?"

None. "Outstanding. MOUNT UP AND MOVE OUT!"

On the way out, Jin pulled aside Sugiyama and Yoshida. "Yoshida, I need you here on an open radio channel to keep in contact with the task group." Yoshida nodded and headed over to the old radio equipment set up by the computer stations.

"And Kento, you're with me; it's time to dig out our ace in the hole…"

**-X-X-X-**

"_Lieutenant Andrews, I've got a pair of abandoned vehicles up ahead blocking the road," _the commander of the convoy's only Stryker escort reported from the head of the procession.

"Acknowledged, Sergeant," Lieutenant Scott Andrews radioed back. "All vehicles, full stop! We'll hold here while the escorts remove the obstruction. Security contingent, dismount and establish a perimeter."

The seven-vehicle convoy – consisting of one Stryker IAV at the head, three M35 deuce-and-a-half trucks, one massive LVS (Logistics Vehicle System) cargo hauler, and two Humvees bringing up the rear – rolled to a stop off to the left side of the street, with two soldiers from the Stryker moved forward to remove the cargo trucks blocking their route

A squad of troops dismounted from various locations around the convoy, and took up positions on the street and on the vehicles

It didn't help much as the lead Stryker disappeared in a massive fireball, and the machine gunners of the Humvees both slumped over with holes in their heads.

"REVERSE! REVERSE!" Andrews barked in a panic, gesturing for the LSV's driver to back up.

The Humvees attempted to comply. But, as the rearmost vehicle started backing up, the driver was eviscerated by a hail of machine gun fire as a fair of insurgent Technicals zipped into the street behind them. The other Humvee backed straight into his dead comrade's vehicle, and was quickly killed himself; both of the escort vehicles went out of control, and crashed on either side of the road. The LSV's driver found himself incapable of passing through the narrow gap formed by the unexpected roadblock, and hit the brakes.

Andrews grabbed his FAMAS G4 from beside him and opened the door, spraying the battle rifle indiscriminately in the Technicals' direction.

Sugiyama emerged from the shadows of a doorway across the street, and raised his carbine; two shots later, the convoy's only officer fell to the pavement, and didn't get back up. He jogged over to the cargo hauler, and pulled himself into the cab. "Now, you're going to get out of this truck and run _faaaar _away, or else we're going to have serious problems," the Japanese teenager growled, his weapon leveled at the beleaguered grunt. The poor trooper nodded hurriedly and slipped out of the truck, scrambling through the trees and off into the park.

He was shot a few minutes later by another unrelated resistance group simply for crossing their path, but it was out of Kento's hands.

Meanwhile, a pair of rebels slipped into the trucks blocking the road, and moved them out of the way; the surprised remnants of the Britannian security detachment were quickly finished off, and the supply truck drivers were "escorted" off.

"That was almost bizarrely simple…" Aoi, manning the machine gun of one of the Technicals, muttered worriedly.

Famous last words indeed.

A single massive projectile then flew through the air, slamming into his midsection and throwing him out of the vehicle and into the side of a building, bisecting his body at the waist.

The others turned their guns on the new arrivals, with the other two gun trucks rolling onto the scene, only to come face-to-Factsphere with a five-frame squad of Glasgows.

Wait… Five?

Something was off.

That "something" was revealed as the furthest Glasgow turned on his comrades, firing his Slash Harkens into two of their cockpits, and mowing down the others easily.

"Holy shit…" Sugiyama breathed in amazement, slumping back in his seat with a hand clenched over his chest; his heart was running a million miles a minute.

"**Hey, you guys alright?" **the Glasgow's pilot asked over the frame's PA.

"Hey, is that you, Jin?" one of the drivers called back.

"**No, I'm some random not-so-assholish Britannian Knightmare pilot that decided to slaughter his comrades on a whim to save a group of "pathetic Elevens"," **the pilot – obviously Jin – retorted. The group could almost _see _him rolling his eyes.

"We're fine – Aoi and Katsu were the only casualties!" Sugiyama cut in. "Come on; let's get the hell out of here before they start throwing tanks at us!"

"**Sounds like a plan. I'll take the lead; keep your eyes on the sky for trailing choppers."**

**-X-X-X-**

Upon their return to the warehouses, the raiders found the place mostly empty, sans a handful of radio operators and self-proclaimed administrative workers. Among them were Inoue and Han, who were still sorting through papers and filing them by relevance and priority.

"Hey, where'd everybody go?" Jin queried as he and Sugiyama entered the office.

"Everybody stored most of their gear for the day and went on the lamb," Han replied. "Naoto took a couple of people and all of the freed prisoners and struck out for Nagano; about half of them are shipping out to go hide in the mountains of Hokkaido, and the other half are headed for the Chinese Federation. Tamaki's the only released prisoner who's staying here."

"Of course he would be," Jin grumbled half-heartedly. Tamaki was an idiot, but he was loyal at least. "And the rest of the strike force?"

"Grabbed a bunch of food, water, and building materials, and headed into the subway system. Said they were gonna build a little safe house down there and hide out for a few days."

"Smart kids. Did Ohgi and the gang head back to the apartments?"

"Yep." Han stored his last file in a strongbox and sealed it up with Inoue's findings. "We'll throw these in with whatever supplies we're taking from the loot," he said. "So, how's the haul?"

"Dunno," Jin shrugged, "We haven't had time to crack anything open. Everything in the deuce-and-a-halves is mostly crates of field rations and ammunition, but we haven't peeked into the shipping container on the back of the LSV yet."

"Doesn't look like any normal shipping container I've ever seen on one of these things." Han descended the stairs, set his box down, and grabbed an acetylene torch off of one of the drivers; a few cuts later and the doors of the container swung open, allowing Han and Jin to climb inside.

They were pleasantly surprised by the contents. "Well, we have our new armory," the older man declared with a grin.

Lining either side of container were rows and rows of _guns_; the most obscene variety of firearms either man had ever seen.

On one wall hung two dozen AK-47s; on the opposite hung two dozen FAMAS G4s. The back wall was filled with Uzis, MAC-10s, PP-2000s, and any number of other types of machine pistols and light SMGs.

The floor, though, was stacked with crates and hard cases – the former for helmets and vests, and the latter for even more guns.

"I may be Shinto, but I'd say that we're celebrating an early Christmas right now!" Jin laughed heartily, grabbing the nearest FAMAS and checking it over. "This must all be confiscated gear heading for another unit to catalogue, since Darlton had no means of safely storing it."

"Almost would've been better off sitting in his storage room now, though," Han added with an ear-to-ear grin as he maneuvered across the space and grabbed an AK and a pair of PP-2000s. "I'm now enjoying Russian Christmas myself!"

After the two senior-most fighters took their picks and retrieved ammunition, the other half-dozen resistance members still present raided the rest and selected unique weapons. Once everyone was out, though, Jin and Han quickly sealed up the container.

"Alright everyone," Jin called to the others, "Let's keep this container quiet, or else everyone is going to go nuts and start fighting over shit. We need to keep this stuff under wraps and store it away for a later date and possible resale; that means _do not tell anyone else where you got this gear_. Say that you found it somewhere around town or something."

The others – sans Han, who was nodding in agreement – looked hesitant. "But, Jin…" Inoue piped up slowly, "Wouldn't this stuff be a great benefit to the others? Why don't we just pick some of it out, bring it to them, and store the rest?"

"As it stands, everyone in the group is armed with perfectly good guns; too much of a good thing, and everyone is going to start getting cocky. When people get cocky, they stop listened to orders and making mistakes; we cannot afford mistakes in our current situation."

"Are there any more questions?" Seeing none, and with everyone nodding in understanding, Jin smiled slightly. "Good. Now; Han, Kento and I are going to go store this stuff; the rest of you take the two of the other supply trucks and bring them down into the subway system to meet up with the others."

Once the others had gone, and the trio had finished cleaning up, Jin and Han slipped into the LSV's cab, while Kento grabbed the last M35. With the youngest man taking the lead, the group slipped into a comfortable silence as they drove out of the garage and around the block.

After a few minutes, as the truck slipped down a service tunnel into the subway system, Han broke the silence. "Say, Jin."

"What do I say, Han?" he replied nonchalantly.

"In the last week or so, have you just gotten the feeling that… That these guys really aren't taking this seriously?"

Jin thought about it. Now that he recalled, there had been several small incidents that matched Han's concern; the prep crews for the assault vehicles messing around and setting back time tables, the armory crew messing around with the weapons, etcetera.

"… I see what you're saying," he said finally. "What's your point?"

"My point is that we cannot afford that kind of attitude if we're going to make it out of this alive," Han replied gravely. "Tamaki being a prime example."

"I don't think we have to worry about Tamaki after this little incident," Jin shook his head as he turned off down another tunnel, following the tail lights of Kento's truck.

"Yes, but we can't afford to have the entire group imprisoned by the enemy just to "teach them a lesson"," Han deadpanned to his companion. "This operation was far too straightforward and detached to be able to accomplish it, sans the members of Kento's team who actually got into the thick of things with the gunfight distraction. What we need is one _big _head-to-head engagement that'll bloody most if not everybody sufficiently to shape them up."

"I'm not intentionally leading my friends and _their _friends into a reckless, bloody, high-body-count battle against elite Britannian military forces just on the hope that the _survivors _take away a lesson about mortality from it," Jin snapped vehemently. "Honestly, what is this, fucking Sparta?! What the hell are you thinking, man?!"

"I'm _thinking _that we're not going to last much longer if they don't _learn!_" Han shot back with equal fervor.

"Learning is a _process_, man! You can't just throw a kid in a classroom with a textbook and tell him to learn it from cover to cover in a day! For Christ's sake, what you're proposing is the epitome of Britannia's Darwinism! If we go through with this, we're no better than Emperor Charlie and his legions of pillaging blue-blooded bastards!"

Han didn't know what to say to that, really. The large man fell silent, and the rest of the drive passed as such.

A few minutes later, the two trucks stopped by a rail platform a few miles from where the other fighters had set up their shelter. Jin jumped out and up onto the platform, ripping a tarp away from somewhere nearby, revealing an industrial forklift.

"Where the hell did you get that thing?" Sugiyama queried, pulling up from where he had stopped when Jin had stopped following.

"If I told you, Ken, you'd have to either die a horrible, fiery death, or start pushing coke on a street corner in a suit and tie," Jin replied wryly. Oddly, Kento could detect no humor in his response.

Leaving it at that, Jin pulled the container from the truck bed, and turned the forklift around. The wall was covered by more tarp; Jin ripped that down, revealing a close-fit, roll-up garage door. The door was pulled up from inside, and a pair of men in immaculate black suits and wraparound black sunglasses stepped out.

"Jin? The hell are you doing here?" one of them grunted.

"I've got a present that I need you guys to hold onto for a while, Tanner," Jin replied. Han's brow shot up, and he realized that the man in question most definitely was _not _Japanese.

"Jin, who are these guys?" he demanded sharply.

"Chill, Han; Tanner and Eiji are cool," Jin replied calmly, waving a hand behind him in a placating gesture.

"Mister Zhou has been asking about you, Jin," the other suited man, Eiji, commented. "Your uncle's report of your absence upset him."

"Tell Old Man Tian that I'm doing alright; I've just been helping out my friends and trying not to get killed."

"I'll pass it on. Now what've you got?" Jin grinned at the man broadly.

"You're gonna _love _this." He lowered the forks and let the container hit the ground, cracking open the doors and showing the pair its contents. Tanner let out a low whistle.

"Can I have one?"

"Don't you guys take a retainers' fee anyway? Pick two, there's ammo in the truck down thataway." The two grinned back and dove in headlong, coming out with their picks before sealing the container up again. Eiji drove the forklift with the container into the space, the interior hidden by a thick veil of darkness, while Tanner accepted four boxes of ammo from Jin.

"So how've you two been doing down here? Is it just you guys guarding the place?"

"Boss sends us some company to check in and take stock every few days," Tanner replied, slightly distracted while he toyed with his unloaded FAMAS. "Damn I love these things. Even back in Basic, I could out-shoot my Chief with one of these."

"And how's my uncle doing?"

"Boss is holding down the fort up at our dispatch station in Chiba. The organization's pretty much flown the coop; a lot of the grunts have taken refuge in the mountains of Hokkaido, while the chain of command is directing remotely from somewhere in the Chinese Federation. The few of us operating on Honshu are old hands and specialists, with Boss pretty much running our own little show here."

"Sounds like good business for you lot," Jin commented nonchalantly.

"No kidding. Soldiers gotta drink and smoke just like anybody else, and they're only too happy to waste their combat pay on us," Tanner chuckled.

Eiji stepped back into the line, smoothing imaginary creases in his immaculate suit. "I put it in the back," he said simply.

"Awesome. In that case, I'll see you guys whenever I have to make a withdrawal… Or another delivery." Jin accepted a cigarette from Tanner, lit up, and turned back to the truck. "Don't go stir-crazy down here, alright?"

"Wouldn't be worth it; Eiji'd use it as an excuse to put me out of _his _misery," Tanner drawled back, with Eiji in the background miming the pumping of a shotgun for emphasis.

"Right, right. Take care, guys." Jin took a few more moments to finish his smoke, dropping it on the concrete and stamping it out as Eiji and Tanner retreated back into the garage, the door sliding shut behind him. Han and Kento helped him pin the tarp back up over the front of it, and they moved a section of scaffolding in front of it to further cover. Once complete, Jin slid back into the LSV, and rolled down the window to address his comrades. "The same warning as when we got here applies, gentlemen," he said simply. "I'll be back in twenty, as soon as I dump this rig."

As Jin reversed back down the tunnel, Han and Kento shared a glance. "… We should talk to Naoto about this," Kento finally said hesitantly.

Han nodded slightly, but then put a hand on the younger man's shoulder as they went back to the M35. "But _only _Naoto. Regardless of his… questionable connections, Jin was actually right about keeping the guns on the down-low. We've done so well thus far because we've all been absolutely focused on acquiring the necessities; now that we have them, we're probably going to have a few guys try to cut and run, and we want to keep those numbers _low_."

"This is just so messed up!" Kento ground out in frustration, "Why the hell are we suddenly so suspicious of our friends when the Britannians are the ones tearing our country apart?! Why can't we all just stay focused on the matter at hand, Han?!"

"If the world was that simple, Kent, then Britannian never would've set foot on our shores," the large man shook his head sadly. "C'mon, the others are probably going to need some help."

The pair slid into the truck and fired it up, failing to note that the back of the truck had been emptied while Tanner and Jin had been conversing; the canisters and boxes now sat in a dark corner of the hidden warehouse, not to be touched for several more years.

Two unknown men in suits and shades stood on the opposite platform, watching the Japanese fighters drive off. One of them took a drag of his cigarette, and passed it off to his partner.

"We should keep an eye on those two," the first said quietly.

The second took a quick drag, and blew a perfect smoke ring. "It's already done. Now we just need to make sure that Darlton plays his part correctly; which means we need to stall him. Make the call."

The first pulled out a plain flip cellphone, and tapped out a quick message; he clicked "Send".

**-X- 3:00 PM -X-**

Following the debacle at the Imperial Palace – dubbed by Diethard Ried of HiTV as "Darlton's Dramatic Disaster", and officially referenced as "Triple-D Day" by other members of the media – Andreas had immediately ordered security to be increased around all logistics operations, both stationary and mobile, as well as all current and future reconstruction projects.

Several miles out to sea, a battlegroup of the Royal Britannian Navy sat at the ready along the coast of Japan, ready to respond with fire, air, or infantry support to any threat within the immediate Kanto District.

From this group, a fresh battalion of mixed infantry and armor had been dispatched to aid in the security boost.

Darlton himself was overseeing the transition from the harbor's Command, Control, and Communications (C3) post atop one of the larger warehouse complexes. All around him, Army and Navy officers coordinated the docking efforts by radio, video phone, and even a series of old-fashioned floodlight signals officers and flaggers on the external observation deck.

Somewhere in the room, a cellphone rang. Darlton paid it no mind, keeping his eyes fixed on the displays.

The gunshots that followed a few seconds later, however, served to garner his attention.

The general spun on the spot, and bore witness as a nondescript officer gunned down his comrades at their stations with his standard-issue sidearm and a blank expression. Several guards rushed up into the room from the floor hatch, only to crumple as the man unloaded the rest of his clip into the front ranks.

Andreas found himself unable to move as the gunman glanced his way. Time slowed; the general felt as though he could see every little detail, down to the detailing and serial number on the pistol's slide. He then realized that he was staring down the barrel, and couldn't even flinch away.

He was still numb as the man smiled humorlessly, offered a mocking salute, and raised the gun to his own head; the last bullet of the clip passed cleanly into one temple and out the other in a vibrant crimson spray.

Time resumed normally as the security team finally rushed in, immediately checking the shooter for a pulse and, once declaring him dead, set about searching for survivors.

His hearing was returned next, and Darlton found the radios buzzing with panicked reports of similar incidents all around the harbor.

Outside, several ships burned in the open waters of the harbor, with a pair of immobile frigates blocking the entrance and preventing anyone but the harbor's own fireboats and smaller ships from responding and aiding the crewmen of the scuttled vessels as the panicking Navy men dived over the sides and into the frigid Tokyo Bay.

"What in the world…?" he whispered hoarsely, regaining use of his vocal chords.

His aide's words were finally processed. "GENERAL!" Darlton winced at the volume, and turned to find a startled Major staring at him.

"Have some patience and watch your volume, Major," he grunted admonishingly. "Compose yourself, and speak."

The sweating, harried-looking officer jittered in place for a few more seconds before his breathing slowed, and he finally exhaled sharply. "My apologies, sir," the Major apologized in a calmer tone; the man straightened his uniform and gratefully accepting a rag from an enlisted man to wipe the perspiration from his brow. "Sir, it appears that several plants – or spies, or turncoats, or _whatever _– decided to suddenly surface and launch sabotage attacks across the entire staging area. Guardsmen, signals officers, deckhands, you name it – at least a few of them just up and grabbed whatever they could get their hands on and started killing their comrades and damaging material."

"How bad are the damages?" Andreas asked quietly, his gaze sweeping over the docks.

"Preliminary reports indicate at least forty-six dead and over three hundred injured, along with eighteen vehicles damaged, two hundred and seventy tons of equipment and equipment and supplies lost, and twelve ships hit. The battalion's property and manpower seem to have been the primary target, since all of their ships and two thirds of their landed supplies have been reported among the damages."

"Shit…" the interim Theater Commander sighed despairingly. He suddenly felt every second of his forty years. He ran a hand over his face, and felt an unusual number of wrinkles on his tanned and weathered skin.

"Contact Admiral Kincaid and have him dispatch another battalion to our second staging grounds at Nojimazaki Point. Dispatch two companies to the area to provide perimeter security until every single scrap of gear had landed, down to the last canteen. And get our OSI detachment up here to start looking into this incident."

"Right away, sir."

"And someone find me the Sergeant Major!" Andreas's heart sank as he caught a sharp intake of breath behind him. "Is there something else, Major?"

"Command Sergeant Major Kenneth Lucas was the first confirmed casualty, sir. He was delivering orders to the Aid Station when the attacks came; he was mortally wounded when his assailant unloaded eleven rounds into his chest and stomach, but still managed to draw his own sidearm and kill the traitor with two shots to the head. The Chief Medical Officer declared him dead at fifteen-oh-four hours."

"… Have his body moved under heavy guard to the nearest available aircraft and shipped out to the HMS Portland. The coroners are to repair as much damage as possible, and prepare him for an open-casket funeral. I want him in full formal dress with all accolades, and the Victoria Cross pinned across his chest. Once that's done, put him in the best casket we have, and ship him back to my command onshore."

"Understood, sir."

"Once his body is ashore, declare a ceasefire throughout the District and recall all nonessential personnel to the primary staging areas. If they come across Eleven military personnel or insurgents, have them bring the bodies – the coroners will fix them up as well."

Now the Major was puzzled. "Sir?"

"It's called respect for the dead, Major. I believe _that _courtesy, at the very least, is universal."

* * *

**End of Chapter 5**

**End of Part 1 - _Risen Sun, Fallen Land_**


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